


Shared madness

by boleyn13



Series: Folie à deux [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dark Loki (Marvel), Established Relationship, Folie a Deux, Gen, Loki is a great boyfriend, Love, M/M, Magic, Murder, Murder Husbands, Never mess with Loki's boyfriend, Protective Loki (Marvel), Psychopaths In Love, Revenge, Romance, SHIELD, The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, Violence, Yes there is an OC but no Mary Sue
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-05-09 12:24:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14716004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleyn13/pseuds/boleyn13
Summary: Narrowing his eyes slightly Loki cocked his head, contemplating. “Do you want me to do something about them? The agents and officers that laid their hands on you. From the second they took you into custody until now. Whatever you want. Cut off their fingers, poke out their eyes, slice their throats. Just say the word…”“Why go back to get revenge on them?”“Because they hurt you.”After SHIELD's miserable attempt to stop Loki has failed, it's only a question of time till he will get revenge on the entire organisation and the Avengers. There might still be hope though, since they finally know about Loki's one single weakness.SEQUEL to CATFISHING





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody, 
> 
> So, this is an experiment. At first I didn't think there was anything left to say about Loki and Rayne, but then people asked about a sequel and ideas started to come to mind. 
> 
> I give you a first chapter to hear what you guys think, if you are interested and if you want this to be continued. So let me know :)
> 
> It's your decision, if you want this sequel - you'll get it :)
> 
> Oh right, you need to have read [Catfishing](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13614117/chapters/33828819), otherwise this makes no sense whatsoever. 
> 
> Last question - people asked for smut in the last story. Is there general interest in that?
> 
> Have fun :)

It wasn’t the kisses Christian that had missed most. Not the thing he had thought about most in his prison cell. He had been longing for something much simpler. Their conversations, hearing Loki’s voice, his intelligence sipping into every single one of his words and Christian feeling like this could be something he would have said himself. Even if he didn’t agree, there was nothing more fun and fulfilling to debate with Loki. To find out what was going on in this beautiful, messed up mind and to marvel at the chaos.

Those had been the thoughts he hadn’t been able to let go.

Right now things were different.

Loki’s lips were on his and Christian felt like he had been drowning for weeks. He was clinging on to him, his fingers digging into Loki’s arms and he felt so weak. Like he was going to trip over any second. Unfortunately that thought became more prominent. The undeniable knowledge of what the last months had done to the general state of his body. Emaciating was the best word to describe it and Christian hated it.

Especially right now when he could feel the leather Loki was wearing against his own clothes. Also that mouth on his own. Christian wanted to slip inside of Loki, get all wrapped up inside of him and tell him all over again that he had been stupid, that he was sorry and that he wanted to be taken apart. As a punishment and because he wanted to.

Pressing himself closer Christian kissed him deeper, desperate for all the contact that he could get. It wasn’t like he had given up, but during the last months and the beatings he had come to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to see Loki again. That the Asgardian wasn’t even going to come to kill him himself. That he wasn’t worth the trouble.

Loki had done more than that. He had come back, only for him. Christian wasn’t naïve enough to believe that Loki had come with the intention to save him. He had probably made up his mind during the interrogation. What did it matter? They were here now. Wherever ‘here’ was. Christian was desperate to hold on to him, which he did and it resulted in a quiet, pained moan.

Nothing more was necessary to remind Christian of the gunshot wound. Pulling back Christian looked down at Loki and the dark leather of armour was sticky with blood. For a second rage and concern were fighting for the upper hand before a clear winner emerged.

“We need to take care of that.”

As expected the first reaction was a dismissive grunt. “Shouldn’t you have learned that by now?”

“I know that the security of the World Security Council uses Vibranium bullets and if they didn’t go right through… we’ll need to get them out. I know you heal quicker than anybody else, but I am not going to let you stand here bleeding.” Looking around Christian didn’t really bother to take in his surroundings, he just needed an opportunity for Loki to sit down. They were in a nicely furnished apartment, quite familiar to the place Loki had lost because of Christian. “Lie down on the couch, okay? I’m going to take a look at it.”

A bit to Christian’s surprise Loki followed suit and stretched out his long legs.

“Let me see?”

The beautiful green light transformed the armour into simple sweatpants and a t-shirt. Also blood-stained. Slowly Christian pulled the shirt up to reveal the wound in Loki’s side. Two of them, they had already stopped bleeding. Christian could clearly see where both of the bullets had penetrated his skin. “Are you in pain?”

Loki raised a very condescending eyebrow and Christian felt a smile making its way on his lips. “I know that will heal. That it means nothing, but that doesn’t mean it can’t hurt.”

After releasing a silent breath Loki nodded. “Actually it does… your primitive guns seem at least to be doing a good job on that.”

“Alright. I need to get the bullets out… You happen to have anything that I can use to do that?”

As soon as Christian had asked his question Loki made a little gesture and a proper first-aid kit appeared right next to them. “Where did you steal that from?”

“SHIELD.” Loki said casually and Christian smiled. “I figured… Okay, let’s get to it.”

Christian has had his fair share of experience of stitching people up. It happened to be part of the training. There was no denying though that it had always annoyed him when people had been whiny about their injury. It was such a pathetic display of weakness. Loki was barely uttering a sound as Christian was getting out the bullets, same thing when he was cleaning the wounds. Why would he? Those were indeed just scratch to him, but Christian still wanted to know that they had been taken care of.

A hand was suddenly touching his face and Christian instantly leaned into it. “I don’t know that look on your face. What are you thinking about?”

Releasing a little breath Christian shook his head, trying not to give into the thought. There was an unpleasant feeling pooling in the pit of his stomach. Getting more intense every second. Almost painfully so. A constant little sting. One that would make him snap and then make him do things. Now wasn’t the time, he wasn’t finished stitching Loki up and he would rather go back into his prison cell than doing a bad job on this.

“Come on, tell me. I want to know.” Loki’s voice was gentle and yet demanding. The way it had always been and Christian wanted to fall into it. Tell him every little thing that was on his mind and have Loki reacting to it.

“I…” Christian’s eyes darted to Loki’s face, to his mild expression and the sting got more intense. Almost unbearable. Taking another look at the wound Christian put into words what was going on in his head. “I am thinking about how I wish I would have done more than just stabbing him. I killed him too quickly. He didn’t get to suffer enough.”

Now his hands were starting to shake and that was exactly what he hadn’t wanted. He wasn’t going to mess this up because of his anger, but just looking at the wound was almost causing a fit of rage.

Loki’s hand firmly grabbed his hair and pulled him forward. Instead of saying anything Loki pressed their mouths together in what turned out to be a rather fierce kiss. One that took Christian by surprise and made him all the more aware of what a mess he had to be right now. Sure, he was wearing new clothes, but that was it. Beneath them he was still too thin, beat up and his hair had to be filthy. Not to mention what his face had to look like. Also it was getting harder to ignore the pain from his split lip.

Pulling slightly back Christian mumbled quietly “Don’t. You just got shot into the stomach.”

“I don’t care.” Loki laughed which was still an amazingly beautiful sound and as he leaned in for another kiss, Christian couldn’t help himself but sat back up on his haunches. “I do care and…” Sighing softly Christian ran one hand through his hair and it indeed felt greasy and dirty. “I look and I feel horrible. I haven’t looked into the mirror for a week, but I can vividly imagine what I look like…”

It was embarrassing yet impossible to ignore.

Loki ignored something else entirely. His wound as he sat up and put his hands on Christian’s cheeks. “You look like you’ve spent time in the dungeon. Which isn’t nice, I’ll admit. But that’s only temporary and superficial…” Trailing his thumbs over Christian’s cheekbones Loki smiled. “You have that glint in your eyes now. It finally came out, you’ve stopped holding back and it makes you… shine. You are gorgeous.”

During his whole life Christian had never really been the kind of person that was easily impressed by compliments to his physique. He much more enjoyed being considered a smart or interesting person. Right now, having Loki tell him that he was beautiful was making his heart beat so ridiculously fast and the sting disappeared within a single second. Being replaced with a warm, almost fuzzy feeling of content.

“You can’t possibly imagine how much I missed you.” With another person Christian would have felt strange voicing such a thought, but with Loki everything seemed alright. Every single twisted thought in his mind suddenly made perfect sense and seemed absolutely alright.

“Oh, I think I can.” Loki replied, his thumb now grazing Christian’s split lip, making him wince. Narrowing his eyes slightly Loki cocked his head, contemplating. “Do you want me to do something about them?”

“Who?”

“All of them.” Loki’s voice had lost its gentleness. “The agents and officers that laid their hands on you. From the second they took you into custody until now. Whatever you want. Cut off their fingers, poke out their eyes, slice their throats. Just say the word…”

Christian’s breath got caught. “I thought… You said I needed to suffer. You would have got me out sooner if you hadn’t wanted that. There is no way that you didn’t know what they were doing with me.”

“Sure I knew.” Loki nodded. “You betrayed me. I needed to make a point. Make you understand that I’ll ruin you if you stab me in the back… but you tried to save me and you didn’t regret doing that even when they pushed you into the dirt and hit you. So I came back for you.”

“So why go back to get revenge on them? When it’s what you wanted…”

“Because they hurt you.” Loki stated matter-of-factly. “I don’t claim that any of this is logical and it doesn’t have to be. I would love to eviscerate them if you told me to. Exactly how you feel about the man who shot me.”

That was so hard to imagine. Never before in his life had Christian felt such anger. Overcome by urge to completely destroy somebody until there was nothing left of them. Choking their life out of them. He would have done exactly that if it hadn’t been for the knife in his hand. Loki claiming to feel the same way brought a smile to his lips. “They don’t matter to me… Not right now. I just… I want to be with you. Can we burn the world down later on?”

This had Loki laughing and Christian leaned into him, wrapping his arms around Loki’s neck. No wince, nothing. As if Loki had already forgotten about being shot. It sent a pleasant shower down Christian’s back to be reminded of how powerful he was.

“As you wish…”

There was a new kiss and Christian was torn between wanting to crawl beneath Loki’s skin and just wanting a very long shower. For now he was content with resting his head on Loki’s shoulder and breathing in his familiar scent. Like winter. Another thing whose absence that he hadn’t noticed before and now it seemed like a miracle that he had survived without it.

“I thought about you. A lot… You were pretty much the only thing I thought about during these seven months…”

“I hope so.”

“Not just…” Christian reached for his hand, entwining their fingers. “When I wasn’t waiting for you to come and kill me, I was hoping that you would obliterate SHIELD completely… I imagined it. When they brought me back to the headquarters today I was almost… disappointed.”

Clearly amused Loki chuckled. “Oh, I did. Only a week after they locked you up. I was a lot of fun actually.”

Yes, Christian was sure of that. Smiling softly he glanced at Loki. “You’ll have to tell me.”

“I will.” Loki agreed and lifted their entwined fingers. Only now Christian remembered that his own hands were still covered in the blood of the guard that had dared to shoot at Loki. By now Loki’s hand was also smeared with red and they were both a mess. Christian couldn’t care less. They looked wonderful together like this. “And how about after I’ve told you, we’ll tear the whole place down. Together. Obliterate it. The entire organisation and all of their associates.”

There was the thrill again. The one that Christian had thought he was never going to feel again. It made him shiver in excitement. Was there anything better? Getting back at them for wanting to put Loki in a cell? Locking up his beautiful madness and maybe even trying to steal his gifts? They should definitely burn for that and Christian would do everything in his power to help, just to make up for his own part in this horrible game. Though Loki claimed that he had suffered enough, Christian didn’t actually think he deserved to be forgiven yet.

Looking at their bloodied hands Christian nodded. “Yes, I’d like that.”

Loki’s mouth brushed over his cheek and then touched his ear. Christian shuddered as Loki talked to him in the sweetest tone that he had ever heard. “They were all beneath you from the very beginning. From the first second you set foot in there. It doesn’t matter, because I am going to give you so much power. So much more than you have ever imagined.”


	2. Little alterations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> I'm so happy you guys are interested in this :)
> 
> Let's see how things will play out

The only thing that made Tony feel better about throwing up was that Steve had the exact same problem. After all the shit they had been through Tony had thought that there weren’t many things left that could shake him to his core. The sight of the guard’s body had done exactly that. All of them had watched Rayne stabbing him and yet looking at the corpse was something entirely different. Rayne had pretty much gutted him. There were so many holes in his chest that not much of his was actually left. He was lying in a pool of blood, Tony could see parts of his organs.

By all means, this wasn’t what they were used to. An alien invasion? Sure, but those creatures had all used guns, lasers. Effective to kill people and they weren’t leaving a mess. Not even Loki had done this shit. Whenever he used his knifes, he preferred one precise stab or a sliced throat. Not tearing someone’s torso apart.

The only one seemingly unaffected was Clint. While the medics were getting the knocked out and fucking lucky guards out of the room, he was checking out the corpse with unhidden curiosity. Maybe also a bit of fascination. “Damn, that guy was angry…

“Shut up, Clint…” Tony hissed, fighting the bile rising up again. What was that supposed to mean? They had all seen what had happened. How Rayne had jumped the now dead guard.

“I am being serious… This is a complete mess. Rayne is a trained agent. Yeah, sure, he doesn’t have that much combat experience, but he still knows where to put a knife to do the most damage. None of that can be found here. This is what you see when somebody with severe anger issues who has never picked up a knife lashed out completely. He was not thinking, he was just angry.”

“Yes, Clint, we saw that.”

“No, you don’t get it. Rayne hesitated Loki gave him the opportunity to kill his abuser, but he lynched the guy who shot Loki… within a second. This is complete overkill. After seven months in prison without Loki coming to get him and Rayne still killed him instantly. The guy is completely infatuated and none of us saw that…”

Tony kept his eyes on the medics, so he wouldn’t have to look at the corpse. “Yeah, feeling’s mutual. They were making out in a pool of blood. Fucked up crazies…”

“I hate to be the one who says this, but… We probably should be grateful that nobody else died.” Steve’s face was completely pale and Tony gestured him that he was getting out of the cell, he couldn’t take this anymore. The Captain was obviously glad to follow him and outside the door they met up with Fury who was still on the phone, trying to figure out what had happened to Councilwoman Hayley. If she was still alive or if Loki had made her disappear for good.

“Alright.” Without any kind of goodbye Fury hung up and turned to them. Tony was surprised that he seemed to be still keeping his cool after this disaster. “Loki has a sense of humour. He got Councilwoman Hayley in her own home, he teleported her to an island in the South Pacific. There are hardly any inhabitants and it took her until now to get in contact with anybody who could offer her a phone. Before Loki had her security pick him up, he told her husband that she was having an affair. He was definitely having a fun day.”

“Okay, you guys need to change every security protocol that Rayne has ever been aware of. Changing code names that of agents that he has been working with. If you haven’t done that already…” They had to have already done this or at least Tony desperately hoped so.

“What would Loki care about security codes? His usual mode of attack is to just show up and… kill people.” Steve seemed a bit confused and Tony shook his head. “That’s Loki’s style, yeah. Rayne can’t do that and I don’t believe that he will let Loki do all of his dirty work. SHIELD locked him up for over half a year and as we now know he got treated like shit. He’s the boyfriend of a vengeful god, he’s going to want to make somebody pay and that doesn’t have to mean that he is going to blow the place up. He could sell lots of secrets to other nations or what the hell do I know. It’s definitely time to look into everything that Rayne has ever worked on… and find out who but that asshole Flint used him as a punching bag at the Raft, because they need protection 24/7.”

Fury was glaring at him and Tony was ready to throw a punch if the director should even dare to disagree with him.

“I am not a fan of Stark giving orders, but you are right. We’ll pull up all the files that we have at our disposal. I’m going to contact agent Romanoff. Meeting in the main conference room in 15 minutes.”

As Fury stalked away Tony asked himself who was going to call the family of the dead guard.

“It would be definitely too naïve to believe that there might be a chance that they’ll just disappear? That Loki is content that he has his guy and that he is just going to show him all the other worlds and dimensions and that they’ll never come back? That they just want to be happy together.” Steve clearly didn’t believe it himself, but seemed willing to ask for the very small possibility that Tony might agree.

“Oh, I definitely believe that they want to be happy together. Unfortunately their happiness will involve other people’s misery. You remember what Rayne said? Sure, at the time we thought that he was merely playing along, but he said that it excited him to watch Loki killing people. Do you see such a couple just disappearing and lying low for the rest of their lives? I don’t.” Tony felt the urge to vomit rising up again, but it wasn’t going to happen.

Steve was still as pale as before and Tony patted his shoulder as they slowly followed Fury down the hall. Tony let his thoughts wonder. They needed to get into contact with Thor. Telling him that his little brother had broken his now boyfriend out of prison and they were probably going to hear from them pretty soon. In the worst possible way.

The conference room was already stacked with actual files, coffee and water. Tony went for the latter first, trying to wash the sickness away. Clint and Steve made themselves comfortable and grabbed some of the files. “What is all of this?”

“Mission reports, psych-evaluations, pretty much everything we have on Rayne.” Fury explained. “I have already asked for a video of every interrogation that took place at the Raft. If we find anything that could help us finding out what they might end up doing now…”

No reason to finish that sentence, everybody knew what they had to do. Grabbing one of the files Tony opened it and started to read.

 ***

The adrenaline had vanished and now the hot water was now doing the rest. Physically Christian had felt perfectly alright when they had got here and only now he became aware of the ache in his muscles. Oddly enough he couldn’t really tell where the hurt was coming from. During the last seven months he hadn’t had the opportunity to move around as much as he had during the last two hours, so maybe that had something to do with it.

What did it matter? The pain was only temporary. Its only effect was that Christian wanted to slip right into bed and sleep for an entire week. Kneading his own shoulder Christian sighed and tilted his face right into the stream of water. Yes, his skin had definitely longed for hot water. Seven months was a very long time.

After 10 more minutes Christian stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Now it was time to confront the mirror which he had been very eager to avoid when he had entered the bathroom.

Christian knew about the bruises on his face, they didn’t matter much. They would be history in a couple of days. The other alterations would take more time to change back.

Looking at his own reflection Christian kept his own expression completely neutral, but inwardly he grimaced. The skin of his face was slightly pink due to the hot water, but looking at his arms and chest revealed the truth. Pale, almost grey. Maybe he was imagining it, but Christian thought he could see the veins underneath so much clearer. Had his skin become thinner? Something was definitely wrong with it since Christian could spot a fading bruise on his jaw. That didn’t make much sense. Christian’s memory hadn’t suffered, unlike his body and he knew that he hadn’t received a blow to the jaw in over three weeks. The bruise should be mostly gone and this one was still clearly visible.

The next above is eye also looked worse than it was supposed to. It took them longer to heal. Shouldn’t be that much of a surprise considering the malnutrition. That wouldn’t go away within a week. Taking a step back, Christian looked down at himself and found that he had lost weight in all the wrong places. Mostly muscle mass and before the Raft Christian had been physically fit, so he wasn’t looking downright sickly, but it was definitely a change for the worse.

No, the person looking back at him wasn’t a sight to behold. It certainly wasn’t the person Loki had been with seven months ago, but Christian was getting there again. That was going to take time though.

Since his inspection wasn’t providing him any joy and he was already feeling cold Christian wrapped himself up in a towel and left the bathroom. The clothes that Loki had projected onto him were lying on the bed, but Christian really didn’t want to put on the jeans again. He long for something more comfortable.

Trying not to have any expectations Christian opened the excessively big wardrobe. A smile made its way on Christian’s lips when he recognized quite a lot of clothes as his own. There were also other pieces that he had never seen before, but which definitely pleased him and which would have been his size seven months ago. Loki had thought of his clothes, he had got them for him.

Nonetheless Christian reached for the fluffiest bathrobe he had ever seen. The fabric felt like heaven against his cold skin. Newly dressed Christian returned to the main room of the apartment. Loki had said that he was going to make dinner and Christian could already smell it. He stopped in the doorframe, watching Loki moving around.

The armour had been replaced by slacks and a long-sleeved, tight grey shirt. Loki’s hair was pulled back in a messy bun, to keep it out of his face while he was chopping up peppers. Christian exhaled softly and finally his skin seemed to get a bit warmer which had nothing to do with the bathrobe. There was no way Loki was consciously doing this, moving with that much grace, moving that knife with such breath taking ease. No effort whatsoever.

Everything about him was stunning and impeccable.

It was a bit odd that Christian thought the idea of standing here and watching Loki sounded like the most useful and satisfying way to pass his time. Christian would be happy watching him do anything, preferably if it involved a knife or magic.

Christian marvelled at the sight for a couple of minutes until he slowly walked over to Loki and slid his arms around his lean waist while the god was cutting tomatoes. “Thank you…” Christian muttered the words quietly against Loki’s back. There was no answer, but Christian could feel Loki leaning into him.

The other’s body heat seemed to be slipping into him, making him feel comfy and warm. Safe even. Christian tilted his head up like he had done in the shower, now nuzzling his face against the back of Loki's neck, to touch and feel his skin. The realisation hit him completely unexpected. This was the first time they were alone.

Alright, technically they had been alone from the moment Loki had brought him here, but Christian hadn’t realised that at the time. Now it was different, only Loki and him. Intimate. Without eyes watching and ears listening. It was only them and Christian had never felt so close to him. The sentiment was strange. Being content.

Not wanting to be somewhere else. Not wanting to be doing anything else. Sure, that would change again, but in this very moment Christian was completely satisfied. Right now he could just stand here and not give a damn about the world going up in flames. There was a good chance that was going to happen.

“You will have to let me move eventually, because I need to get some plates out of the cupboard.”

Christian wasn’t having any of that. “You are an almost limitless powerful entity, but you can’t get the plates if I don’t let go of you.”

“That’s not how it works. I can’t actually teleport things. I’ll gladly explain to you another time. Now I just want the plates.” There was an amused chuckle in Loki’s voice and Christian sighed before indeed letting go of him.

Obviously content Loki took the plates out of the cupboard. “Lasagne’s going to be ready in five minutes.”

That sounded so much better than whatever it had been what Christian had been served at the Raft. “You went for Italian…”

“Sure, your favourite.”

That was all it took. One single word to make that carefree moment fade into the past. Christian didn’t even have the time to feel bad about it, Loki was already putting the pieces together. How could he not notice the immediate change?

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just…” Christian closed his eyes for a second and his hands were terribly cold, so he stuffed them into the pockets of his bathrobe. “It’s not my favourite. I made that up.”

Such an unimportant detail that ultimately didn’t mean anything. His favourite food. Practically non-information. Nevertheless Christian couldn’t help but fall right back into the same feeling that had been constantly with him at the Raft. Guilt and self-loathing. Over such a tiny little thing.

Christian studied the god’s face as Loki cocked his head, seemingly thinking about had just been said. Then he suddenly nodded and opened a drawer to get out the cutlery. “Okay. Then what’s your favourite?”

“Uhm… you know I can’t cook, but I love lamb. I pretty much order it everywhere I go…”

Loki nodded once more as he turned off the stove. “Fine, then I can do that the next time. Now sit down. I’m setting up the table.”

He did that with a lazy gesture of his hand and the table was sat up before Christian had even reached his chair. Little tricks, nothing more. For Loki this was just like breathing. Something that came naturally, without thinking about it. When there was so much more he could do. An endless amount of things and Christian wanted to see them all. Looking back it seemed like a crime wanting to lock him away, to stop him from doing this.

Being fascinating, overwhelming and all consuming.

When Loki walked past him with he leaned down and pressed a kiss into Christian’s hair. “I can hear you think.”

He didn’t. Not literally, Christian knew that, but he understood what Loki meant. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”

“Don’t. I like it.” Loki smirked before sitting down opposite of Christian. “Enjoy.”

There was no need to tell Christian twice. The food was divine, he was with Loki. More than just enjoyment.

Christian would have loved to lick his plate clean, but he didn’t even get that far. Despite being literally starved Christian could only finish half of his plate. He instantly felt full, like any other bite would make him feel sick. Which was a shame, because Loki had outdone himself, the lasagne was fantastic.

“I’m sorry. I can’t. I love it, but…”

Loki indicated him to stop talking. “It’s alright. Put it on the list.”

“What list?”

“Things you make them suffer for. Like you did.” Loki slightly raised his hand and a familiar golden dagger appeared in his hand. “Do you know how many single, small cuts it takes to kill somebody? I don’t. I haven’t tried. I guess I wouldn’t recommend it. Takes too much time and would probably be quite exhausting. Nonetheless it’s worth thinking about it, isn’t it? Imagine all the things they did, how often and the intensity. One cut for every little thing. Visualise it.”

Christian did.

“How does it make you feel?”

“Better. Good.”

Flint’s disgusting, plain face. One cut for every time he had hit him. In the exact same place. There would be nothing of that despicable face left. Which would only be fair.

“I know what you’re thinking about yourself at the moment. When you look into the mirror. I don’t think you’ve looked at your eyes though. They are stunning. Perfect even. I could drown in them.”

Loki’s voice was like honey and Christian felt how his lips were forming a smile. “Really? I can tell what you’re doing right now. I’ve done it myself countless times. First trick in the book.”

Grinning sharply Loki leaned back. “Is it working?”

“Kind of.”

Perfectly content Loki hummed. “Still true though.”

There it was again. The feeling that he wasn’t going to need anything else-

Although Christian wanted to stay right here, talk with him, just be with him, alone… his eyes were already sliding closed. Another thing that didn’t surprise Loki, he told him that they were going to bed despite the early time. Christian was so tired, he was skipping out on brushing his teeth. He was simply sliding beneath the covers, still wearing his bathrobe. The bed was so comfortable and soft, he probably wasn’t going to be able to sleep.

Or maybe it would be the easiest thing in the world when Loki put his arm around him. “Can you stay awake for me a second longer?”

“Hmm?”

It took quite an effort to look at him, but Loki’s smile was worth it. Then there was another magic trick. One that Christian had already seen before. The one where Loki made a necklace appear in his hand. Carefully Loki slipped the powerful piece of jewellery around Christian’s neck. “It’s yours, always was. They were wrong about it. Seven months ago. When that woman told you that it hadn’t protected you from the green beast. It protected you, like it was supposed to. I just happened to stand behind you. Just don’t take it off this time.”

Christian wasn’t going to and the necklace wasn’t the only thing that he was going to hold on to. For now he was wrapping himself around Loki, sealing their mouths together in what turned out to be the laziest kiss of Christian’s life.

He fell asleep within seconds.


	3. Doing things together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> The Avengers are trying to figure out what is going to happen now and Loki / Christian start their first day as a real couple. Let's see how that one turns out :)

“There, I’ve just struck the goldmine.”

Steve looked up from the mission report he was reading and noticed Tony waving with the sheet he was holding. “What is it?”

“One of his psych-evaluations. Almost 10 years old, but quite interesting nonetheless. Did I say interesting? I meant scary as fuck.” Tony’s eyes were still scanning the sheet and Steve felt his own stomach twisting. “Details, please?”

“I agree. Stark, what have you found?”

“Alright, I’ll try to sum it up.” Tony kept reading the document while talking. “The psychiatrist… or psychologist, whatever wrote into his report that Rayne had the perfect answer for every question. Not in the obvious – I am just pretending to be completely calm and sane – way. The psychiatrist actually wrote that he wasn’t able to tell if Rayne was playing a role or not. Damn it, Nick, I hope you hired new staff if your psych-people can’t even figure out if your agents are likely to get compromised and turn against you.”

“Undercover agents have an obligatory evaluation after every assignment. This one is 10 years old, you said? Try to find a newer one. After such an evaluation, there was definitely a second one.” Fury pointed out and Tony went through the other sheets. “Right, here is another one. Give me second.”

While Tony was reading the evaluation Steve put the mission report down and waited for Tony to give them new information.

“Great, this is just lovely.” A dark frown appeared on Tony’s face which made Steve feel uneasy. “According to the report Rayne is such an expert at reading people that he can instantly adapt his behaviour to what the other one would like to see. He also did it during the evaluation, but the psych wasn’t as stupid as the first one. Lots of adjectives to describe Rayne… Narcissistic, yeah heard that one before. Charming, highly organised, reckless, manipulative, patient, capable to stay calm in extremely dangerous and stressful situations… Huh…”

Steve raised an eyebrow when Tony stopped reading. “Something wrong?”

“No, it’s just… somebody scribbled ‘sociopathic tendencies?’ next to that line. Wonderful. Okay, let’s go on. Dominant, self-aware… Oh, now it’s getting funny. Lack of respect for authorities if he feels they aren’t qualified or not as capable as him. That concerns you, Nick.”

Fury grunted. “Very funny, Stark. Just read the paper and don’t comment on it.”

“Alright… highly competitive and driven by fierce ambition. Attracted to power and willing to go great lengths to get what he wants.” Putting the paper back down on the table Tony sighed. “Well, it’s not like we didn’t noticed a lot of these traits, but having them all summed up… Is that the usual type of people that you hire, Nick?”

Unfazed Fury shrugged. “Actually that list makes him the perfect undercover agent. He is a chameleon and willing to get ahead.”

“Except for the sociopathic tendencies…” Steve felt like he had to remind them of that and didn’t expect Clint to be dismissive of it. “That word gets thrown around a lot if somebody has a cold demeanour, is capable to withstand incredible pressure and knows how to push people’s buttons. Doesn’t mean he is antisocial or eager to use violence. There wasn’t a single incident in 11 years. Hell, I am sure that if you look at any undercover agent’s resume, you’ll find a lot similar traits. We shouldn’t make the mistake to assume that Loki got to him, because Rayne was crazy beforehand. That would trivialise what happened.”

To Steve that sounded reasonable enough, but it also meant that the hadn’t got any further. “Alright… but we still have no idea what they might do now. I went through Rayne’s assignments in Russia and in Germany. Half of the reports are blackened out. Which means that most of the things he worked on are off limits. So he definitely has valuable information, but I don’t see how any of this is going to help us how to figure out what they are going to do next… Unlike Rayne I am not that good at reading people.”

“Okay, let’s get back to basics… Let’s imagine you are Rayne… you’ve just spent seven months in a high security prison where the staff abused you and…” Tony trailed off and Steve could tell that he was having an idea. “What?”

“Just wondering… Do we have the surveillance tapes of the Raft yet? We haven’t seen Rayne for seven months and I guess he wasn’t allowed to have any visitors?”

“No, strict solitary confinement. There were interrogations though. I requested the tapes, they should be here by now.”

“I suppose we take a look at them as soon as we can… Maybe he said something during his time there that might help us figuring out there next steps. I mean… he got abused there, he’s going to want to get back at them and…”

Tony fell silent as his eyes fell on Clint who was shaking his head. “What?”

The agent seemed pensive and then shook his head once more. “I am not really sure if Rayne wants to get back at anybody.”

That statement had Tony laughing out loud and even Steve was tempted to roll his eyes, because what else should be going on in Rayne’s head right now? Strangely enough it was Fury who seemed most interested in Clint’s strange reaction. “What makes you say that, Barton?”

His answer was short and simple. “Because Rayne hasn’t shown any hostility towards any of us.”

Now this had Tony almost crawling across the table. “Excuse me? I am getting old and senile, because I think I remember you checking out the guy that Rayne completely gutted and you said something about overkill. No hostility?!”

Clint wouldn’t let Tony get him riled up. “Hear me out. When did we see him turn violent? When he fired a gun at the Hulk and today when he killed that guard. Admittedly rather viciously. What do those two occasions have in common?”

Not a difficult question to answer. “Somebody attacked Loki.”

“Exactly.” Clint nodded. “You guys were watching like me how Loki tried to get Rayne to kill Flint. We don’t know anything yet for sure, but I guess it’s safe to assume that Flint abused Rayne during the entire seven months. Rayne hesitated… yes, I kind of believe that he would have killed Flint if there hadn’t been an interruption, but Rayne didn’t get there himself. It’s all about Loki. Rayne willingly went to jail for him without regret. He jumped between him and the Hulk and brutally killed the guy who wounded Loki. There might be a possibility that Rayne merely wants to… be with him. Yes, I know how that sounds and I am absolutely sure that Rayne would kill all of us without batting an eyelid if we were to threaten Loki in some kind of way. Besides that… there might be a chance that he isn’t out for revenge.”

For a short moment Steve was willing to believe that, but then the sickening images of Loki and Rayne kissing and touching each other with blood all over them. “He said that he liked it… Watching Loki killing people…”

“Hey, I am not denying that Rayne has some serious issues, he is completely infatuated and obviously he is enjoying Loki’s… madness. It’s still something entirely different to get his own hands dirty. He didn’t do that yet. The guard was the first person he killed and he didn’t do that for enjoyment.”

“Okay, I get what you are trying to say, but even if Rayne dreams of running away with Loki to a different dimension and living there with him… Loki is not going to do that. Loki is still going to come after everyone who was involved in getting Rayne behind bars.” There wasn’t the shadow of a doubt in Tony’s voice and Steve was tempted to agree.

Sure, this was a new situation, having Loki teaming up with somebody and Rayne knew indeed a lot about the entire organisation, but in the end it was still Loki they had to worry about.

“Alright, let’s take a look at the interrogations…”

 ***

For a couple of seconds Christian was back at the Raft. He wasn’t entirely awake yet, but his body felt the softness of the mattress, the warmth of the blanket and he realised that he wasn’t at the Raft anymore. This was Loki’s place.

Letting a sound of utter content Christian rolled around, not surprised to find out that he was alone in this bed. A glance at the alarm clock told him that it was early afternoon. How long had he slept? Over 14 hours? If he wanted he could remain lying here, nobody was going to come to drag him onto his feet and hit him if he wasn’t moving fast enough. That wasn’t even the part that mattered. Loki was just a door away and Christian could see him anytime he wanted to. It was the thing Christian wanted the most, but not the only thing he wanted. A long bath, French Fries, letting his hair grow back, read a good book, feel Loki’s magic on him. Christian would have all of that.

Before starting the day with a bath Christian slowly slid out of bed and took off the bathrobe he had fallen asleep in. Underneath he was only wearing his underwear and Christian’s mangled body surely hadn’t changed overnight, but Loki wouldn’t care. With a smile on his lips Christian let his fingers run across the necklace Loki had returned to him. Where it belonged.

After leaving the bathroom Christian found Loki in the middle of the living room, sitting on the floor in lotus style. Meditating? His eyes were closed and there was a soft green glow surrounding his hands. Perhaps it was all in Christian’s head, but he thought he could feel all that power just radiating from Loki, filling the room, even touching Christian’s skin. He missed the sensation of it. Something he could fall into, completely get lost in.

“You are stunning…”

Loki’s eyes slid open and he smiled when he saw Christian watching him. “You are awake. I was starting to think I would only see you again tonight.”

“I guess I was tired…” Christian trailed off when he saw the green glow disappearing. “No, don’t stop. Whatever you were doing, I didn’t want you to stop.”

With a dismissive gesture Loki tried to show him that it wasn’t important. “I was merely looking for something. It can wait.”

“No, it can’t…”

Loki quirked an eyebrow as Christian walked over to him, sinking down to his knees right in front of him. “Can you do it again? Please.”

Without answering Loki closed his eyes again and Christian watched in awe as his hands began to shine with green light. Carefully Christian took Loki’s left hand into his own, savouring the warmth and the little sparks. Not like electricity, more intense, sending shivers through his body, making his skin tingle. This was feeling alive.

“I missed this…” Christian mumbled softly as he lifted Loki’s hand and nuzzled his cheek against the palm. He wanted to feel it all over. All the power that Loki was yielding at the tips of his fingers. Opening his eyes again Loki watched him attentively. “Me? Or just my magic?”

“Same thing.”

Clearly content with the answer Loki leaned forward and kissed Christian. It was a painful reminder that the cut in his lip still hadn’t healed. Christian winced and subconsciously pulled back with made Loki’s eyes drop to the injury. The gentleness vanished and was instantly replaced by darkness. The feel of his magic changed, it turned grim, like a storm that was coming up. It threatened to make Christian dizzy.

“I should cut off all of his fingers and feed them to him…”

“No, you should kiss me again. Just a little more careful this time.”

The storm was still approaching, Christian could feel it. Loki didn’t let it loose though, he complied. Leaning in again and pressing their mouths together. It still hurt, but Christian wasn’t going to let that stop him. What he wanted was to crawl inside of him, wrap himself around Loki and feel his body and all the power underneath. It was a strange realisation. All thoughts that had anything to do with sex had quickly disappeared during the imprisonment. They had been gone for months and now the desire was back within a single moment. Christian wanted him. Desperately.

Not like this though. Not with a battered body that didn’t resemble what Loki was used to. Also Loki would only see the bruises and it wouldn’t be about him.

“Stop thinking so hard… “ Loki was smiling at him and Christian hated himself for ever handing Fury or SHIELD even a single piece of information about him. For talking about him when Loki wasn’t there. A part of him wanted to apologize, to ask for forgiveness, but he knew that for Loki it was all in the past. Christian had suffered for betraying him and that was enough for Loki.

Not the other way around.

Trying to think of anything else Christian leaned his forehead against Loki’s shoulder. “Can we go out today? I’ve spent the last seven months within closed doors, I want some fresh air and the sun on my skin… I could need a tan.”

“How about breakfast in Vienna, lunch in Barcelona and dinner in Monaco?”

Pulling back Christian frown lightly. “Monaco?”

The smirk on Loki’s face couldn’t be more amused. “Yes, I know, I could just create fake money myself with a simple illusion, but sometimes it’s fun to use a more complicated method. You’ve ever been to a casino?”

“Yes, but it’s been a while.”

“Great, we’ll go there tonight and have a few games. I’m sure you’ll bring me luck.”

“Because I’ll help you cheat?”

“Exactly.” There was an almost childish glee to be found in Loki’s smirk and loved it. “It’s been years since I’ve teamed up with somebody. This is going to be so much fun. I’ll need you to keep an eye on everybody else while I am doing a few of my little tricks.” As a demonstration Loki raised one hand and a single card appeared between his fingers. Ace of hearts. Loki turned it around and when Christian saw the front again it was now the Queen of Pikes.

It seemed so very simple, like a trick that anybody could pull off, but Christian knew that it wasn’t. If you tried to figure out how Loki was doing it, the only answer was magic.

“Oh, they are going to hate you there…”

“Us. They’re going to hate us. “ There was genuine excitement in Loki’s eyes which almost felt as good as his magic against Christian’s skin. After another kiss Loki ran his hand over Christian’s too short hair. “Come on, get into the bathtub. Europe’s waiting and I got still some searching to do.”

Nodding shortly Christian got up to his feet and headed back to the bedroom. In the doorframe he stopped though, looking over his shoulder to see Loki in the exact same position as he had found him in. Hands glowing green.

“What are you looking for anyway?”

A malicious and absolutely beautiful smile spread across Loki’s face. “I promised you power, didn’t I? I guess I just found the first piece of it.”


	4. On our own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> Loki and Christian have their first real relationship talk and then things get a little violent...
> 
> Have fun :D

“Blackjack. Table 12. Box 3. I need a name.”

It was a Tuesday, supposedly one of the slower days and yet the pit bosses wouldn’t stop calling surveillance. Well, it happened. Jean-Baptiste shrugged it off switched to the camera that provided him with the best view of table 12.

Box 3 was a little unusual. Not because it was a woman, they liked to gamble just like men. The game affected all people. It was a rare sight though to have a woman sitting at the table and have her arm candy standing behind her. Normally it was still the other way round. Anyway, they clearly were an item and easy to look at. To be frank, the woman was drop dead gorgeous. Dark red curls that reached down to her waist, fine features and lipstick that matched her hair. She should be fairly easy to find among the guests. The guy didn’t stand out that much, but he was also attractive. Short, blonde hair, a nicely trimmed beard and broad shoulders.

It took Jean-Baptiste less than 10 seconds to find their names among all of the people that had entered the casino today. They were Italian. A married couple. Costa. Lucia and Massimo.

Jean-Baptiste picked the phone back up and told the pit-boss what he had found out. “Anything else? Should I keep an eye on them?”

“No, the ginger just changed 10000 in cash at the table. Doesn’t seem keen on playing small.”

Smoking hot Italian woman who seemed to have a bit of cash to spend. Jean-Baptiste would have liked to keep his eye on that one.

About an hour later Jean-Baptiste received another call from the same pit-boss. “Yeah, I need you to keep an eye on table 12, box 3.”

“Still the Italian bombshell?”

“The Italian bombshell has been winning for 45 minutes straight. I’m starting to lose count how many games she has won with just two cards. I couldn’t make out any foul play yet, so keep an eye on her and her partner. Damn, this night sucks.”

Yes indeed. It was rather odd that this was the second couple that was causing them trouble today. About two three hours ago they had had two guys at the poker table that had ruined every game, because both of them just kept winning. They had been here together which wasn’t in the least bit suspicious. Naturally they had had all of their eyes on them, but after winning about 90 000 euros, they simply got up and left. All smiles, whispering, laughing and all but saying that they had screwed everyone over. Well, there was nothing you could do if you didn’t have definite proof. You let them go and hope they would return, so the house could make its money back.

So Jean-Baptiste would make sure that the Italians weren’t going to screw them over too. After only four minutes of watching them Jean-Baptiste could see the Massimo’s hand brushing over the bombshell’s left shoulder. That was new. He had touched her before, but mostly kisses on the cheek, squeezing her hand or running his hand down her back. Left shoulder – nope.

It was obviously a sign, because 30 seconds later Lucia took all of the chips she had won and got up, wrapping her arm around Massimo’s waist. Okay, they had a suspicious tap on the shoulder, but that was all. Clearly not enough to do anything about them. So the two Italians left the casino with the 40000 euros they had won. Arms wrapped around each other, snickering.

Right, definitely not the best day.

 ***

“Get us two bottle of champagne, will you? Keep the change.” Loki slipped a banknote into the stunned page boy’s pocket and then ushered him out the door.

Christian watched him… her with a smile as Loki waltzed past him, opening the big, white balcony doors and providing them a marvellous view over the beach at night. A soft breeze was playing with his… his long red hair as he sat down on the railing, slipping off his high heels. “You were stunning…”

“I didn’t do much. That was mostly you.”

Loki smiled and finally Christian could see something familiar in that completely different face. The spark in those eyes and the mischief in his smile. “I only did a few card tricks… would have been hard to watch all the people around at the same time.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve done it all by yourself before.” Christian met his smile and Loki shrugged. “I’ll do whatever is necessary given the situation, sure and I like doing things on my own, but tonight…” Loki clicked his tongue and it was increasingly difficult to see these features on him. “Tonight was beautiful. I kind of forgot how satisfying it can be to work with somebody… and how profitable.”

“It was definitely fun.” Most fun Christian had had during the last seven months. Now he had got to watch Loki use his magic to fool people and it felt amazing to help him with it, even just a little bit. Something simple like observing the room, keeping an eye on the people who were supposed to watch them and give Loki a little warning if people were onto them. It had been shockingly easy and exciting.

The best thing about it though was to see Loki having a blast. It would only be better if he actually looked like Loki. Thinking of that…

“Loki, can you…” Christian gestured at his own face and Loki giggled in the most feminine way. “Already? It’s a nice face…”

Sure and to Christian’s surprise it still didn’t feel like he was wearing a charm, but since they were at the hotel now he wanted to be himself again. “Please, don’t make me believe that you like the fake face better than my own.”

The smile on Loki’s face turned softer as he cocked his head, red curls falling over his shoulders. “Definitely not…”

Loki waved his too delicate fingers and Christian felt the soft, warm glow on him for a second, then it was gone again. He didn’t feel any different, but he knew that the illusion was gone.

“Come outside, it’s lovely.”

Stepping onto the balcony Christian found out that Loki was right. The air smelled rich, the scent of the Mediterranean was lingering in it, the sound of soft waves crashing into the beach was strangely calming. “It’s beautiful.”

Almost like a fantasy. Something he had made up while still being in prison.

“I know I said come outside, but what I actually meant was come here.” Loki reached for him, pulled him closer by his suit and then slid his arms around his shoulders. Instinctively Christian put his hands on Loki’s hips, as if to make sure that he wouldn’t slip and fall off the railing. Like that could happen…

Christian thought about how odd the garment of Loki’s dress felt beneath his fingers, also the shape of his hips wasn’t right. It was a thought that Christian couldn’t finish, because a warm, unfamiliar mouth sealed his own, kissing him passionately. For a moment Christian let himself melt into it before taking half a step back, causing Loki to pout. “Hmm?”

“Not like this, okay? I’d like to kiss you… You. Not this woman.”

Grinning in amusement Loki gesture at himself. “It’s still me. Just another cover.”

“And it’s amazing. Impressive… also gorgeous. “ Christian didn’t know how to phrase this, so he kept it simple. “But it’s not the face I want to kiss.”

Loki tilted his head, looking pensive, but before Christian had the time to worry about having said something wrong, the green glamour ran down Loki’s skin and the red-headed woman turned back into a much more beautiful and definitely more familiar man. Green eyes were teasingly looking at him. “Better?”

“Definitely…” Christian smiled before moving back in, kissing Loki gently. That body felt so much better beneath his hands and like this the kisses weren’t awkward. Quite the opposite. Loki opened up beneath him, his arms pulling Christian closer. His fingers digging into his back in the most demanding way. Christian instantly grabbed him tighter for the irrational fear that Loki might slip and fall. The heat of the kiss seemed almost overwhelming and how much he’d like to do all these things that Loki’s lips and hands were promising. There couldn’t be much doubt left about Loki’s intentions when he wrapped his legs around Christian’s waist, pulling him abruptly closer until he Christian was pressed against him and the railing. One hand was sliding into his too short hair and Christian could feel how Loki tried to tug at it, remembering it being longer.

This wasn’t right. Sure, in the big picture he didn’t care about his hair, but there were so many other little things and together they added up to a huge pile. Loki’s other hand was trailing down his chest and working open the first button of his shirt ridiculously quickly. This wasn’t going to work out like this.

Pulling slightly back Christian tried to cover up his discomfort by kissing the corner of Loki’s mouth, but of course that wasn’t enough. Humming quietly Loki let his fingertip run over Christian’s exposed collarbone. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Christian should know better than to lie to him, especially given their history, but this time it wasn’t about going behind his back or anything of that sort. All Christian wanted was everything to be the way Loki wanted it to be and at the moment he definitely couldn’t provide that. “I’m just savouring this… about half a year into my sentence… when I stopped thinking that you would come to kill me, I began to believe that I would stay in that cell for the rest of my life. I resigned myself to that and now that you’ve turned it all around… this is just perfect. This right here.”

“Don’t settle for perfection to easily… or there might be nowhere to go after this.”

“Where do we go from here?”

Loki grinned and it almost made Christian’s knees buckle. There was malice and excitement in it. “Thousands of different places. This is merely a nice starting place.” Casually Loki gestured behind them at the gorgeous view. “Don’t call anything perfect before I haven’t at least shown you five different worlds.”

“Alright, I promise.” With a soft laugh Christian leaned his forehead against Loki’s, brushing his lips over his cheeks.

Clearly content Loki tilted his head and kissed him again, his fingers now opening the next one of the shirt’s buttons. Christian let him do so, trying to ignore that his heartbeat was speeding up while he should be enjoying this. Loki’s mouth brushed over his jaw as his hands slowly pulled his shirt apart. “You didn’t grow shy on me, did you?”

There was laughter in Loki’s voice, not mean-spirited, he was joking and yet he was completely right. Christian sighed and admitted to himself that there was no point in trying to hide something from Loki, most probably he had already figured him out anyway. “Kind of…”

“How so?” Loki didn’t seem to bothered, now trailing soft kisses along Christian’s throat which quickly evoked another kind of sigh.

“Because I am not…” Closing his eyes Christian decided to just go through with it. “I don’t look the same way I did seven months ago and I… I don’t like it. I have never been self-conscious about my body, but… this… You’ve obviously noticed. I look different and I… I don’t feel like it’s good enough. Not with…” Instead of trying to explain it Christian pulled his shirt further to the side and revealed one of the healing bruises. It was almost as big as his palm. Purple at the centre, yellow around the edges. “This isn’t what I want to be thinking about while being with you and it’s definitely not what I want you to be thinking about…”

His heart was still racing, now for another reason. Loki’s eyes were lowering, scrutinizing the bruise, not letting Christian see the expression on his face. “So you’re pretty much allowing them to stop me from touching you?”

“No, that’s not how I…” Except that this was exactly what it was… Putting both hands on Loki’s shoulders Christian let out his frustration and shame in a mangled sound. “I want you. You probably have no idea how much. After watching you at the tables tonight, with that smile on your face while you were casting illusions over every second card and nobody had an idea what was going on… Seeing you right now or thinking of how you just walked into SHIELD’s headquarters to get me out of there… Or simply looking at you. At times I wish I could crawl inside of you, to feel your magic and power all over me. Then I want you to do the same, so you can feel me. All of me that you haven’t seen before. I haven’t had a sexual moment with you that was just about me and you. I was never alone with you… and I don’t want to start being alone with you like this. Thinking of the bruises that were caused by them…”

Christian felt odd as soon as these words were out. Speaking his mind wasn’t something he was unfamiliar with. In a professional setting. To his co-workers and superiors, he had always been respectful but never holding back.

Talking about his feelings? Well, not exactly something new, during some of his mission Christian had laid everything bare, explaining in detail how he was feeling, holding nothing back. Those had all been lies.

This with Loki was new, everything about it and it was mostly exciting, but also a little scary. God have mercy on his soul, Christian wanted all of it and then some.

Finally Loki’s eyes were back on him and they were marvellously green. A storm rampaging inside of them. “Do you really believe that there is a moment when I don’t think about this?”

Christian winced when Loki’s fingers ghosted over the bruise on his chest although the touch was too soft to hurt him.

“That this doesn’t make me want to burn down cities and the people living in it? That I don’t want to ram one my daggers into their chest below the ribcage and then drag it upwards until I reach their chin?”

Suddenly the same fingers that had touched him so gently a second ago now curled tightly around Christian’s jaw. His expression was hard, dangerous even, his lips a straight line. “Do you believe that even for a second that I am not losing my mind from being so furious at you for not speaking up earlier? For waiting until the very last second before telling me the truth? For forcing me to put you through this?”

There was no doubt about his sincerity. Christian could see the dark sparks dancing in his eyes, Loki’s grip on him was harsh and unforgiving. If he didn’t want Christian to get out, he wouldn’t be able to. That realisation alone gave Christian goose bumps in the best possible way. “I am sorry…”

“Anybody else I would have torn apart… killed them on the spot or tortured them before letting them die in agony… but you…” Fingers were painfully digging into his cheeks, but Christian promised himself to not let it show. “… you I didn’t want to let go. Because you played me. You had me. Nobody had ever done that. While I was setting up the pieces to destroy you, to make you regret for ever approaching me… I was still waiting for you to change your mind, because I could see it in you. Something that you didn’t allow anybody to see, not even yourself. But you didn’t come around, you waited… and set up a plan to put me in a cage. If you had tried put to that syringe into my back, I would have killed you on the spot. But you didn’t… letting me wait until the very last second…”

Loki’s fingers were sliding down and he hooked one beneath Christian’s chin, tilting his head up.

“It was rather perfect. I would have let them lock you away in that nasty little prison. Seemed like the perfect punishment. Until you threw yourself between the green beast and me… and I still had to let them take you away. To make you understand, to make you feel it… I needed to be cruel. Don’t think that I enjoyed this. It brought me no pleasure…”

With shocking softness Loki let his thumb run over the Christian’s split lip. “But it will bring me pleasure when I kill them for this and it will be even better, because you will do it with me.”

Christian realised a shaky breath and Loki swallowed it by kissing him. Demandingly, full of desire and Christian might have got it all wrong. But he didn’t mind.

A knock on the door eventually had them pulling apart and Loki smirked. “Let’s get the champagne.”

 ***

The next morning Christian woke up alone and after searching every room of the vast hotel suite Loki was nowhere to be found. This was a first and Christian knew that wherever he had gone, Loki would be back soon. Nonetheless it didn’t feel good to be here on his own.

Christian started his day with a long shower, ignoring his reflection in the mirror, then ordered breakfast. He was taking his very first bite of a slice of toast when Loki suddenly appeared right next to him. Covered in blood.

“Shit! Are you alright?” Christian was out of his chair instantly, but when he had crossed the short distance between the both of them, he had already realised that not a drop of the blood was Loki’s. The grin on his lips said it all.

“I brought you a gift.” In one of Loki’s hands was a golden dagger smeared with red, in the other one he was holding a meaty lump that looked suspiciously like a heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question time:
> 
> \- What present did Loki get him? :)


	5. Power

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> The Avengers are still trying to figure out what to expect from the new power couple and have finally somebody among them who knows what he is talking about ;)

_“Apart from your obvious betrayal, are there any other missions that you have manipulated?”_

_“Every single one of my assignments was a complete success. Which makes this a rather stupid question.”_

_“Since you are such a brilliant agent you might have found a way to manipulate them in a way to gain something for yourself while still painting them as a success for SHIELD.”_

_“Thanks for the compliment, but I did nothing of that sort.”_

_“So you threw away a spotless career and a bright future because you fell in love with a criminal? I wouldn’t have picked you for a man who fell into such clichés.”_

_“That’s not what happened.”_

_“Why don’t you correct me then?”_

_“I don’t feel the need to justify myself.”_

_“Why did you help him get away?”_

_“Because he is right. Because I think it’s repulsive that we are so arrogant to think ourselves strong enough to capture let alone imprison such a powerful being. When he could crush all of us instantly if he wanted to.”_

_“You seem to like that idea.”_

_“It’s not an idea. It’s a fact.”_

_“Is that what it’s all about? You wanted a part of his power.”_

_“I want him to be able to use his power. Knowing it untamed. Like a perfect storm. Tearing down cities or entire civilisations, because they are nothing to him.”_

Fury stopped the video, rubbing his temples. “Even if Barton is right and Rayne is not actively searching revenge… he is not going to do anything to stop Loki from getting it. He definitely enjoins watching him destroy things and killing people.”

“It’s not so much that.”

Despite thinking that psychologists were all con-artists who are after everybody’s money Tony had to admit that he liked the new guy. Contradicting Fury was always a good thing in Tony’s book. Also, he was very keen on the idea to have somebody around who actually had a PHD in psychology. There were way too many people on this team who thought they could psycho-analyse everybody. A professional opinion couldn’t hurt.

“Then what is it, Doctor Nash?” Fury seemed to have learned from the Rayne fiasco, since he didn’t snap at people as easily as before.

“Agent Rayne-“

“Just Rayne, he is not an agent anymore.”

“Fine by me. Rayne is attracted to power, like most people. Only his ideas of power are quite different. Or extreme if you prefer that. It’s not about money or wealth. Something much more basic and rough. Would you be offended if I used you as an example, Mr. Stark?”

For a second Tony thought about making some kind of comment. Like a good looking psychologist could use him in any way he wanted. Given the circumstances that was a nasty thing to think and there was something wrong with him to even be in the mood for jokes. “Go ahead, doctor”

Nash nodded and shot him a smile. It seemed so out of place that Tony remembered how miserable everyone was at SHIELD. “You are the prototype of a powerful man. No, let me rephrase that. You are the culmination of a man with power. You are extremely wealthy which offers you endless possibilities to do whatever you like. Moreover you are the head of an international company that has close ties to more than one government. I guess you would agree with me when I say that you have the power to change lives, ruin them, better them and even to change the entire world if you wanted to.”

When had this all become about him?

“Aren’t you exaggerating a little bit?” Steve looked doubtful and Tony tried his best to put on a humble face.

“No, I am not. Mr. Stark is in the unique position to cause a war if he wanted to. As a single man. That is quite powerful.”

“So what are you saying? That Rayne should really be into me?”

“That’s not where I am trying to go, but you aren’t wrong. I am sure that Rayne at some point must have felt an attraction to you. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he would ever felt the need to act upon it. Anyway, you are powerful and even without your money your intellect still puts you in a much higher and more respected position than most people. Then we have Loki… Director, may we see the footage of the failed attempt to arrest him.”

Nodding Fury pushed a few buttons and then handed the remote control to Nash who quickly offered them a freeze frame of Loki wrapping his hand around Rayne’s neck and lifting him off the floor. To think that these two had ridden off into the sunset together. “Here. A display of physical strength. Superhuman strength. Not that uncommon nowadays. You will probably agree with me when I tell you that physical strength is vastly considered inferior to strategic, military or intellectual power. Nonetheless it doesn’t fail to make an impression when your physical strength is superior to every any other being on that planet.”

Tony was about to speak up and say what about Steve, but then remembered how quickly Loki had had him on his knees in Stuttgart.

“Let’s go on.”

It absolutely was no fun to watch a montage of Loki using magic against people. Shapeshifting, throwing fire and pure magic, teleporting, pulling things out of nowhere or moving things with his mind when he got angry.

Stopping the video once more Nash turned to Tony again. “Now Mr. Stark, as the most resourceful and powerful person in this room, as one of the most powerful people in the world. With all of your contacts, influence, intellect, your suits, your personal friendship to the president of America, your keys to the castle – how would you stop this man who could be you within a single second? How would you use your power to stop him?”

Grunting in annoyance Tony shrugged, suddenly not liking the doctor anymore. “If I had a fucking clue, we wouldn’t be here looking like idiots, right?”

Smiling in a friendly way Nash nodded. “There you go. That’s real power. That’s what Rayne is attracted to. A seemingly unstoppable force. It’s not the killing that attracts him, not the blood. Sure, it might play a role, but merely as a display of power and willingness to use it. Rayne wanted to rise to power himself through SHIELD. Then he came to the realisation that the entire organisation could be taken apart by a single man. What’s more powerful than that?”

As much as Tony hated to admit it, Nash probably had a point.

“I’ve never talked to Rayne personally, so there are still lots of other factors that we’ll have to take into consideration. As much as I would like to analyse all of his behaviour and what it says about power dynamics in relationships… I have no idea about the personal connection. What Rayne is looking for in a partner and body language can only get us so far… Especially since all of the video footage we have is tainted by the fact that Rayne was still working for SHIELD. What I am trying to say is that I agree with what Agent Barton has stated before. There is a good possibility that Rayne himself has no interest in getting revenge on SHIELD. He said it himself, this entire organisation means nothing to him, because he realised that it holds no power.”

“Thanks doctor, it’s really uplifting to hear how easily someone can turn their back on the organisation they’ve worked with for over a decade.” Fury was still doing a good job at keeping his anger down, but there was nonetheless a dangerous edge to his voice. “Despite your thorough analysis we’re still confronted with the same problem. Even if we assume that Rayne is not eager on revenge, I guess we can be sure that he is going to do nothing to stop Loki if he wants to break our necks?”

Nash shook his head. “No, he would probably help him, but it’s still a completely new dynamic. It’s hard to tell how they will influence each other. Until now we’ve only been talking about Rayne. One can only imagine what is going on in Loki’s head and how his attraction to Rayne evolved. I would love to talk to him at one point.”

Tony had kept his mouth shut for long enough now. “Right, he must be every psychologists dream. Don’t you think, doc? Too bad that the last person we had talking to him went right down the rabbit hole. Too deep to come back up.”

The psychologist offered an honestly amused smile which made Tony believe that he had the admirable ability to look at all of this with professional curiosity and distance. “Unlikely to happen, Mr. Stark. I don’t feel very attracted to power.”

Yes, Tony definitely counted that as an insult after it had just been established that he was one of the world’s most powerful man.

“It’s rather astounding that the entire mission was green-lit at all. Any psychologist who knows what he is talking about would have told you that Rayne needed to have intense surveillance and council during this mission. The World Security Council was very upset when they sent me.”

Oh, these hypocrite assholes.

“It was them who green-lit the mission to begin with.”

“I know, but they have the advantage of being the people in charge, so they can be upset about anything they want.”

Tony rolled his eyes, because he knew this was perfectly true. “What are we going to do now? Loki is still as unpredictable as always. We have no idea what Rayne is going to do, but we have at least 10 people who are definitely on a hit list. Protective custody? For how long? What about Rayne’s family? Has anyone told them yet? Is he going to contact them? You said Rayne wanted his guy with endless power. He got that guy now, but there’s still gotta be something that they will want to do with that power? World domination? Or does Rayne just want a house with a white fence and a dog and two and a half kids?”

“That seems rather unlikely, Mr. Stark.”

 ***

“What kind of animal is this?” With morbid curiosity Christian took a step closer and cocked his head to better get a look at the heart.

Smiling maliciously Loki openly held it out to him. “Why do you think it’s an animal?”

Christian gave him a look that said ‘Come on’. “It’s way too big to have belonged to a human.” This was biology 101. “So what is it?”

“A rather nasty species. A rare kind of animal only to be found in a few worlds. Hard to describe. Similar to a dragon. Only much smaller.”

Christian felt a small tingle of excitement. “A dragon?”

“Similar to a dragon. A dragon’s heart would be too big to fit into my hand.”

So there was the confirmation to a never asked question. Dragons did exist and for some reason Christian thought it was a bad moment to tell Loki that he wanted to see one. “What did that beast do to end up so unfortunately?”

“Nothing. I went out to get the heart of one and this was the first one I stumbled upon.”

“That’s indeed unfortunate. What did I do to deserve such a gift?”

The smile on Loki’s face suddenly became much softer, Christian could see the sweetness in it. “I made a promise and I thought of the best ways to keep it. The heart was the first thing that came to mind.”

“Loki, I still need more information. At the moment this is just a bloody mess that nobody ever would want as a gift.”

With a little wave Loki let a golden bowl appear and put the heart into it. “You don’t think it’s a nice piece of decoration?”

Christian’s eyebrows shot up, but Loki’s smirk quickly gave him away. “Very funny.”

“Alright, in all seriousness.” Loki leaned back against the edge of the table, pulling a green cloth out of his armour and to clean the blood off his hands. “These beasts are wickedly hard to kill. Since their creation magic was been woven into their blood and bones. Their entire being is beautiful, a work of art. They rarely attack, their fangs aren’t very sharp and yet they end up killing most of their enemies. The magic within them is only there to protect them. There is hardly a metal strong enough to enter their skin, magic softens all blows as they rain upon it. Whoever tries to attack them will grow tired quickly until they’re easy to kill.”

There was instantly a spark of worry that Christian couldn’t deny. ”If they are so hard to kill how did you do it?”

After cleaning off his dagger Loki showed it to him. Christian had never noticed the black runes before that were written upon it. They started to glow softly as Loki closed his finger around the handle tighter. “I’ve spent over a 1000 years fusing this dagger with magic. Although father liked to pretend that his sons were equally matched… well, I guess I always knew in the back of my mind that one was more equal than the other. That I was never going to wield Mjölnir. Not too much of a big deal, I never wanted to rely too much on a single weapon. My magic should be my weapon. Nonetheless a little help couldn’t hurt. A thousand years of work. It doesn’t have Mjölnir’s brute power. I like things more subtle. I am good fighter, but I work best from a distance. My weakness lies in close combat, so I wanted something to help me with that.”

Once more Christian felt the cold touch of the blade against his cheek, caressing his skin. “This dagger can pierce any material. Doesn’t matter how thick your skin is. It will go right through. I’ll admit it was still quite a chore to kill the beast. The magic shielding it is marvellous… and now it’s all over there.”

Loki pointed at the heart and the pieces slowly came together. There was immediate anticipation, Christian could feel the little hairs on his arms standing up and his tongue suddenly felt so heavy, refusing him to ask the question he wanted to voice. What did it matter? Christian knew that he wanted Loki to do whatever he had in mind. That he would let him do anything.

A gentle hand came up to cup his cheek and Christian leaned into the touch. Every other part of Loki was still covered in blood, Christian could even see it in his eyelashes. Another thing that didn’t matter, given his almost tender expression. “I told you that I’ve got so much to show you. Different places, worlds and although you are so much more brilliant than most of the creatures inhabiting all these worlds, I cannot take you there. Because that beautiful body of yours, no matter how much I enjoy it, is still Midgardian. Frail and easy to break.”

As if to make a point Loki trailed his forefinger across the cut through Christian’s eyebrow. The touch didn’t nearly hurt as much as the reminder of his weakness and the confirmation that after all Loki had noticed how easily they had put him down. How could he have not noticed?

“I’m going to change that.” Loki’s whisper was a promise and Christian was shivering from all the wonderful implications.

“How?”

There was pure joy in Loki’s eyes, highlighting their beauty. “Every single drop of magic that’s in that heart over there I will give to you.”

Christian’s first instinct was to say ‘Yes, please’ and to demand that they’d do it right now, but there was something stronger. Building in the back of his mind and then spreading all over his body, taking control. Loki’s gasp of surprise made Christian’s stomach flip as he crashed their mouths together. The fact that he tasted the blood of some unknown creature similar to a dragon did nothing to taint that wonderful feeling. Actually the opposite. He didn’t give a damn that the kisses they shared while covered in blood always seemed like the best ones. This time Christian couldn’t help it. Loki had cut out this creature’s heart to give to him, to protect him. To give him the power to protect himself. With both of his hands tangled in Loki’s hair Christian kissed him back, pressing him back against the table until Loki pulled his mouth away, grinning. “As much as I enjoy this sudden change of mind…”

His lips brushed over Christian’s ear.

“… the magic will die with the creature. We’ll have to do it quickly.”

Closing his eyes Christian took a small breath, trying to calm down and to still the want inside of him. Wanting Loki and everything that he would give him. “Alright… what do you need me to do?”

Once more Christian felt the caress of the blade, this time running down his arm. “Nothing. Just lie down. I’ll need to open your veins.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question time
> 
> \- Will Christian still want to go through with that?  
> \- What is SHIELD going to do eventually?


	6. Under the skin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> So let's continue. The Avengers have to face some trouble and strangely enough Loki is not the cause of it... :D
> 
> Have fun

“Talk me through it, okay?” Christian exhaled slowly as he lay down on the couch and Loki knelt down on the floor next to him. His hands were warm as they grabbed Christian’s arm. “It’s about quantity and I have to be quick. Your body isn’t made to accommodate something so foreign and powerful, so I need to help out with magic.”

Christian’s heart skipped a beat and there was an undeniable shudder running through his body. The prospect of Loki’s magic actually entering his body was probably the most exciting thing that had ever been proposed to him. He couldn’t get carried away though, the other information Loki had given him was just as important and should probably make him nervous. It didn’t though. “Have you done this before?”

“No, but I know how to do it.”

“Why have you never thought about doing it to yourself?”

Loki shrugged, his fingers tracing the inside of Christian’s arm. “My kind was built for physical combat. I have to admit that I am a slight exception to the rule, but my body can take nevertheless a lot of damage. More than most other species. With me it wouldn’t make that much of a difference. With you… it will change pretty much everything.”

Nodding slowly Christian couldn’t actually think about what that meant for him. “When you say ‘my kind’ do you mean Asgardian or…”

He had never been shushed that quickly. “Let’s talk about that some other time. Here.” Gently Loki tapped his finger against the crook of Christian’s arm. “I’ll have to start the cut here. Then all the way down to here.” Loki drew a line to the palm of Christian’s hand.

“The radial artery… including the wrist?“

“Yes. You will not be endangered. Not even for a second. You will bleed, but I will use my magic to stop you from losing it. I’ll pull all the magic that’s left from the heart and mingle it with your blood. The whole process will probably take 20 minutes. Any more questions?”

“Will it hurt? I mean the mingling… not the cutting part. That’s rather obvious.”

Loki shook his head. “Not at the beginning. The first day will be an adjusting period. I can’t tell you yet how you are going to feel, because you are the first Midgardian who is ever going to go through this transition. It is not going to be pleasant, that much I can tell you.”

Christian hadn’t expected any less, ignoring this protesting gut he nodded. “Alright. Let’s get started.”

To his surprise Loki wasn’t moving. “In a moment.”

Leaning in Loki pressed his mouth on Christian's and for a second he only seemed to be breathing against his lips. It felt nice, but it was definitely better when Loki actually started kissing him. Perfectly gentle and if it hadn’t been Loki Christian would have been worried about what they were going to do. Loki knew what he was doing. More than anyone he had ever met.

When Loki eventually pulled back he poised his golden dagger on Christian’s skin. “You’ll hold still for me.”

Not making a sound Christian nodded. He could feel the blade pressing against his skin. More than that. It was so sharp that it was already sinking in. Like it was nothing. The pain didn’t come immediately, but when it did it hit with full force. The unforgiving blade cut into his skin, tearing issue and muscles apart. As a reaction the ends of his nerves sent a message to his brain and the rest of his body. Searing pain that urged him to pull his arm away, then it urged him to scream. Christian didn’t do either. By the time Loki was half-way done Christian was digging his front teeth into his lower lip. All part of the training. How to withstand torture. Even at the Raft Christian had done a fairly good job of not letting me the anguish he was experiencing. This was different. He was torn.

This was Loki. Loki could see all of him and still he was pretty much the only person that Christian didn’t want to see him being overwhelmed by something.

Turning his head Christian glanced at his arm and tried to remain motionless when he got visual confirmation of how deep the blade had entered his arm. Only millimetres could be separating it from the bone. Blood was surging, but Christian couldn’t feel it running down his arm, because the pain was pushing everything else aside.

Loki continued to move the knife forward and Christian’s vision blurred as he screamed. It didn’t make any difference when Loki pulled out the blade, the ache was threatening to take away his consciousness.

“Hey… Look at me.” There was a small smile on Loki’s lips and for a second of great romantic naivety Christian actually believed that it numbed the pain. In reality there were beautiful green strings of light dancing around the obscene wound and the blood was no longer surging. It seemed frozen in time like the pain. Still present, but somehow more bearable.

“Christian…”

His name on Loki’s lips and he loved it, but it still wasn’t right. Christian wanted to tell him, but it was hard enough to keep breathing.

“I need to let go of my magic to go on and then the pain is going to come back at full force. Alright?”

No, it wasn’t alright, but Christian was willing to take it. He watched with hazy eyes how Loki reached into the bowl next to him. He didn’t pull out the heart though. When his hand came back up again it was clad in some form of pulsing white energy. Moving on its own, forming patters, changing shape and size within a second. Mesmerizing in its beauty.

“Just hold on…”

One second there was Loki’s words and then there was nothing but a spiral of searing pain, sucking him in and not letting go again. When Christian thought he was unable to feel anything else, something slipped underneath his skin, without form and yet it spread its claws inside of him. Everywhere.

Instead of pain there was only sensation. Until darkness engulfed him and everything went way.

It was only when Christian regained consciousness he realised that he had lost it in the first place. Only slowly his scenes returned to him and immediately with them a rather dull ache. Not in his arms but all over. In his head, arms, legs, torso. Impossible to locate though.

He was still lying, now resting against something warm, solid. A hand was running through his hair, an arm was wrapped around his chest. Christian felt completely safe before his brain caught up with the fact that it was Loki who was holding him.

“It’s alright. Go back to sleep. You did good…”

Christian wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but did as he was told.

 ***

“I am having a hard time understanding how you ever were allowed to lead the Avengers this way.”

By now Steve was only waiting for the vein on Fury’s forehead to explode. Honestly, it was also hard for Steve to grasp how they had got from discussing what to do against Loki to… here.

Nash sitting completely unfazed at the other end of the table, left and right next to him big piles of files. This was crazy. Shouldn’t they be doing something different? Like going after Loki and Rayne? Then again, Steve had no idea how to do that.

Leaning back Nash made himself so comfortable that it didn’t look professional anymore as he read from the report in his hands. “Compulsive behaviour. Prone to self-destructive tendencies. Textbook narcissism. Very interesting.” Lowering the report Nash glanced at Fury and then at Tony. “Director, could you please explain to me why a man who you have such information on was ever considered as a member of the Avengers? And who has been part of the group for over a year now?”

Steve’s mouth dropped open. That was supposed to describe Tony? Whoever had written that must have been out of their mind. Sure, Tony was impulsive, but to be honest… most members of the Avengers were. Narcissism. Sure, arrogant, but still with a good heart. Frankly, Tony made a terrible first impression, but if you spent some time with him you quickly learned his true colours.

Like a kid in school Tony raised his hand. “Well, technically I am only a consultant.”

“Semantics, Mr. Stark. Not a fan. You are operating the most powerful weapon the Avengers have at their disposal and as far as I know you are the only one capable of operating it. That doesn’t sound like a consultant to me.”

“It was an early report. After some thorough reflection we decided that most of the concerns were unfounded.” Fury pressed these words through gritted teeth and Nash raised an eyebrow. His expression was rather patronizing. “So you’ve come to the conclusion that the analysis of your psychologist isn’t worth anything. Was he or she released of her duties?”

Fury grumbled. “No.”

“Hmm.” Nash’s eyes dropped back to the paper in his hand. Watching him closely Steve thought that he didn’t look like a real psychologist or at least not like Steve imagined one. Someone like a teacher, with glasses and patches on the elbows of his sleeves. None of that was the case. Nash’s hair was cut short on the sides of his head and got gradually longer at the top. The tips were such a bright blonde that it couldn’t be natural, but the colour got darker and the roots looked almost brown. Steve didn’t know anything about hairstyles, but this just wasn’t the usual psychologist look. Or a look for anyone working for SHIELD. Or anyone who was openly antagonizing Fury and hadn’t been thrown out yet. Was it superficial that Steve thinking so hard about physical appearances?

“Now this is extraordinary.” Nash placed the report on the table and Steve didn’t like his expression. He was obviously doing that thing. Being angry about something, but instead of simply saying it, he decided to be a sarcastic jerk about it. “I had no idea that Agent Romanoff had any formation or diploma in psychology.”

“What?” Steve’s eyebrows went up and Nash pointed at the report. “Since she wrote this analysis of Mr. Stark’s personality, I have to assume that she is qualified to do that. She is qualified, right?”

It took Steve a few moments to catch up with what Nash was saying here. “Natasha wrote that report about Tony? That’s pretty… harsh.”

With a dismissive gesture Tony tried to tell him that it wasn’t so bad. “Nah, I wasn’t at my best behaviour. Suffering from blood poisoning and well… dying made me act like more of a douchebag than usually.”

Instantly Nash’s demeaning expression turned into something else. “Blood poisoning? That’s nowhere mentioned in the report.”

“Details.” Tony shrugged and Nash snorted. “Rather like the most important part of the story. Anyways, where did Agent Romanoff obtain her credentials?”

Fury kept his mouth shut, so it was Clint who spoke up. “Nat doesn’t have any credentials in psychology.”

“Ah.” That apprehensive sound didn’t fool anyone. “That naturally turns this report into a worthless piece of bullshit that isn’t worth the paper that it was written on.”

Steve managed not to gasp, but he couldn’t deny that the swearing in this professional setting was making him feel uncomfortable. Nash wasn’t done yet. “Is this a normal SHIELD procedure, Director Fury? Having people do extremely important work that they are not qualified for?”

“Agent Romanoff is trained at reading people and a very good judge of character.”

Nash huffed at Fury’s response. “I can tell if people have broken a bone by looking at them. You know, because the bone is sticking out of their skin. Would you like me to perform a surgery to put it back in, since I am so good at telling that it shouldn’t be in this position?”

“That’s hardly the same, Doctor Nash.” Finally Fury was speaking up again with the same determination and non-nonsense attitude that he applied while talking to his agents. It made Steve feel a little better about the situation. Until he realised that Nash was anything but impressed. “I just get a little frisky when people think that my profession can be executed by simply anyone who knows a few fancy terms and spends a couple of days with a person who doesn’t even know that they are being analysed. Anyhow, you obviously realised that this report is worth nothing. Thank god for that. Who did you bring in afterwards to profile Mr. Stark? I would like to see the report.”

“Look, Doctor, I appreciate that you are doing your job, but now is really not the time…”

Nash kept staring at Fury, his eyes piercing right through him. Yet his voice was completely calm. “The report on Mr. Stark, Director. Now.”

For a moment Steve thought that Fury would enter in a staring contest with Nash which ultimately didn’t happen. “There was no second report.”

Nash didn’t offer much of a reaction instead decided to sum up what had just been stated. “So before adding a civilian with no professional experience whatsoever to your team you had an unqualified person profiling him. Without his knowledge or consent. While he was in an extreme situation that is more than likely to provoke self-destructive behaviour. Then you tossed the report aside anyway and didn’t bother to write a new one. Am I right if I assume that Mr. Stark has never talked to a psychologist during his time with the Avengers?”

Tony spared Fury another humiliating answer. “Nope. Not once. For the record I don’t really like shrinks.”

Nash didn’t take the bait and instead turned in his chair. Steve couldn’t deny an uneasy feeling as he was being scrutinised. Being stared or looked at was nothing new, but there was something about Nash’s gaze that made him feel like he was taken apart and instantly judged. “What about you, Captain Rogers? When was your last evaluation with a psychologist?”

Why was Steve feeling suddenly self-conscious when this was nothing he had had any influence on? “I didn’t have one.”

“Fantastic.” Nash half-laughed, shaking his head and Steve wasn’t going to lie, it offended him. “I am sorry, sir, but I have always felt perfectly fine. There was never a need for a psychologist.”

His protest was being ignored, almost as if Steve was a child. “You’ve spent 70 years in a block of ice and missed the late half of the 20th century. Immediately after Director Fury puts a weapon in your hand and sends you out on the field without ever talking to a professional about what it means to wake up in a world that you don’t know with everyone you’ve ever been friends with dead. Don’t explain it with the alien invasion, I get it. That’s still no excuse for what happened afterwards. I don’t need to ask about Thor, do I? Yes, I thought so. Doctor Banner, same thing. I guess the only members of the Avengers who have regular sessions with a psychologist are Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton. The level of dangerous negligence with which this group is being led is shocking.”

A bit helpless Steve looked at Tony. He didn’t know what to say when things he had never even thought could be different were suddenly put into question. Tony answered with a shrug that said ‘I have no idea what’s going on either’.

For Fury it was an entirely different game. “With all due respect, Doctor, what does any of this have to do with the situation at hand? How is you criticizing our procedures helping us to find Loki and Rayne?”

“Oh, I am sorry for the misunderstanding, Director.” Nash shook his head, clearly not sorry at all. “The World Security Council didn’t send me to help you finding the demi-god who disappeared with one of your best agents as his new lover. No, I was sent to find out why this mission went so incredibly wrong in the first place and to analyse the inner workings of the Avengers. From what I’ve seen until now I must say I am not very surprised that nobody noticed Agent Rayne losing control of the situation. The World Security Council is worried that this group under its current leadership might not be able stand up to a future attack from Loki. Until now you have given me no reason to not agree with them.”


	7. Let's get real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> A fast update. Loki and Christian have an overdue conversation about their feelings and Nash is continuing to shake things up at SHIELD ;)
> 
> Answer to your comments will come a little later
> 
> Have fun :D

As his eyes slowly opened Christian had trouble figuring out where he was. The bed was soft and unfamiliar, just like the scent. His head felt heavy like after a night of too much booze. A setting that awfully reminded him of a one night stand. Something that he hadn’t done in quite a while. Then Loki had happened.

Loki, right.

They had gone to Monaco, Loki had wanted to give him magic to protect him from attacks. Loki had cut his arm open and Christian had passed out from the overwhelming pain. Nonetheless Christian couldn’t remember any fear.

Rolling onto his back Christian groaned, becoming aware that the pain wasn’t gone. It was merely in different place in a different form. Little needles piercing into his skin which he could also feel them on the inside. There was no getting up for him right now.

Closing his eyes again for a second Christian took a deep breath, figuring out that when he didn’t move he didn’t feel that bad. Just beat up. A smile spread on his lips when he heard steps approaching the bedroom door. Somebody came inside and Christian opened his eyes only to see a familiar red-headed woman in the tiniest pyjamas he had ever seen.

“Hello there, good morning.”

Christian smiled despite himself. “Morning… why do you look like that?”

Loki smirked. “Somebody had to open the door for the room service. Here.” After placing a tray full of breakfast on the bed Loki joined him, running one hand through Christian’s hair. His features hardened, the shape of his body changed until there was average Loki next to him. Who was anything but average.

“How are you feeling?” Loki’s voice was soft and that Christian realised what a strange effect it had on him. So many times he had been asked how he was feeling after a mission and usually Christian had been annoyed. Interpreted that question as the immediate suspicion that something had happened that he hadn’t been able to handle. Or that people were just asking out of habit, not really caring. With Loki it was none of that.

“Like run over by a truck… but I guess that’s normal?”

Nodding softly Loki kept running his fingers over Christian’s hair, had him once more wishing that they were longer. “Definitely. Are you hurting?”

“When I move, yes. But like this it’s okay.”

“Good.” Loki pressed a kiss to his temple and then reached for one of the croissants on the tray. “Try to eat something, it’ll help.”

It was the longest breakfast of Christian’s life. When he took his time sitting up and when he was chewing only slowly it pretty much went over without any pain. Eventually he was lying on his back again, checking out his bandaged arm. “Is there going to be a scar?”

“Yes, that’s one of the inconveniences of a magic infused blade. It will heal nicely though. No rough edges. I was impressed by the way. I expected you to pass out sooner.”

Christian huffed, but it hurt his stomach. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment and it doesn’t feel like one.”

Loki hummed in response, the corners of his lips curling upwards. “I once heard a wise man say that pride is always a sign of weakness. I don’t agree. I love that you are like this. Already so confident and nonetheless so eager for more. But this is nothing to be upset about. You are Midgardian. It’s your essence, what you are. Something that can never be changed in its entirety. In comparison to other species you are a giant. Next to others you are fragile. Breaking apart when being touched. That’s how it is. What I did to you was too much for a Midgardian body to take. As simple as that. No shame and no pride in it. However, I learned that you can take a lot of pain.”

Fragile. That was about right. Christian’s tongue darted out and he could still feel the split in his lip. He had only left the Raft two days ago and Christian still felt like these the bruises and wounds had been there for an eternity. Just another reminder of inadequacy. “I meant it, you know? The night you showed me who you are. When I told you that I didn’t understand why you would stay around. When you are… this powerful entity with the entire world at your fingertips and I am… fragile. I still don’t understand, but I also don’t need to. I am just glad that things are the way they are. That wasn’t fake.”

Silence settled in between them while Loki merely grabbed Christian’s hand, rubbing his thumb over the palm. This felt nice. Perfect to fall asleep again and Christian couldn’t stop his eyes from sliding shut again. Loki’s touch was warm and soothing, lulling him to sleep. Until there was Loki’s voice, soft but inquiring. “So what was fake? I would like to know.”

This conversation was bound to happen, it was absolutely necessary, but Christian hadn’t thought that it would be in such a setting. With him too tired to even open his eyes. To reassure Loki that he was listening Christian entwined their fingers.

“Besides the obvious things like your name.”

There was a tone swinging in Loki’s voice, one that Christian had never heard before. Not in relation to himself at least. Hurt.

“Nothing I’ve ever said about your magic.”

“I know, but I asked about the lies. I have my suspicions, but you’re a good liar and I was smitten, so I didn’t look too closely. I liked everything I heard and I wanted to continue hearing it.”

“I hope you are still smitten…”

“Stop trying to bide time. I want to know.”

Christian felt his chest tightening a bit and he opened his eyes to look at Loki next to him. “I don’t have any sisters. I made them up to get you talking about Thor. I am an only child.”

Loki’s expression was completely blank as he nodded. “Smart. I expected that. Go on.”

“The story about my scar was completely made up. It was one of my first missions. Well, they actually used scissors to stab me. That was true.”

“A pity. I liked the story about the manipulative girlfriend that ruined your life and made you feel worthless. Somewhat familiar. Wondering how you came up with that.”

Christian wanted to stop, because he couldn’t ignore the bitterness in Loki’s voice. “I am sorry.”

Loki laughed but without any joy, he seemed a bit lost, not knowing how to react. “It’s strange, because I can’t stop myself from marvelling at the illusion. The lie. The way you created it, like a work of art. There no words for how much I would love it to watch you doing this to anybody. Anybody else. But it was me and it hate that, it makes me furious and at the same time I am completely amazed that you were able to do it to me.”

“What does that mean?”

“That I loathe and love you at the same time. For the same reason and I don’t necessarily believe that this is a bad thing.”

Ignoring the instant pain Christian shifted closer, sliding his arm around Loki’s waist, nuzzling his face against Loki’s chest. Not touching him would have been way harder. “Do you remember when we were out and these creatures showed up to kill you? You were covered in blood when you kissed me and when we slept together. Afterwards… I still can’t tell how I felt about it. I went directly back to SHIELD and I was sick. I spent almost half an hour in the shower and I scrubbed myself clean until my skin was completely raw. I have no idea why I did that. Because it disgusted me? Because I should that it should disgust me? Or because I tried to deny that I didn’t mind. That I liked it. I think I did, but I couldn’t let anyone else see. But what I said to you… that I was scared of what you made me feel. I meant that and I am not scared anymore. When I told you that I wanted all of you, the good, the bad, the madness. I had no idea how much I meant it.”

Loki’s hand was rubbing soothing circles on Christian’s back. “I know. I knew that before you.”

Sleep threatened to overwhelm him when a rather sinister thought came to his mind. “Loki?”

“Yes?”

“When I was supposed to capture you… I was supposed to knock you out with a toxin that SHIELD especially created for you. They still have it.”

While humming softly Loki continued to caress him. “That’s something we’ll have to take care of eventually.”

 ***

“Does somebody else also have the feeling that Fury is completely fucked?” Any other time Tony would have been amused by how Steve squirmed because of a single swearword. Today there was too much going on.

“I still don’t get it. He is a psychologist. How can he come in and take everything apart?” Steve was shaking his head, clearly upset by how yesterday had gone down.

Clint shrugged although his face was proof of his own displeasure. “Chain of command. He got sent by the people in charge to check out what’s going wrong. Sure, it’s all a big pile of bullshit, because the World Security Council knew about everything we were doing. They just want to get rid of Fury.”

“As much as I agree with that Council being a group of jerk-offs… We gotta admit that the Avengers are not very organized.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at him and Tony frowned. “What? Hey, if I ran my company like… Well, if Pepper ran my company like Fury runs the Avengers, I would be completely bankrupt within a week.”

“You didn’t complain until now about that.”

“Yeah, because I like being able to do what the hell I want, but it probably shouldn’t be that easy. Nash is right, I am a civilian, but I run around in SHIELD’s headquarters and nobody is trying to hide the secret information from me. I never signed anything. What would happen if I decided to call it quit tomorrow and put everything I know online? That kind of stuff.”

It was almost cute how Steve’s eyes widened and it became obvious that he had never thought about that kind of stuff. Why should he? He was a soldier through and through, thriving during missions when he could get things done. The entire organisation and administration around it wasn’t his area.

“Alright, but nobody bothered with that before. Why now? When we should be so much more worried about Loki?” Steve kind of had a point there, but Tony figured that the Council wanted to jump at a perfect opportunity.

“It’s because of Rayne.” Clint stated simply. “He was a high-level agent with access to a lot of information and he ran off with Loki. I guess people started thinking now what would happen if one of us decided to go rogue. Or if we could be influenced the same way. We are full of risk factors. Tony is a civilian, Bruce too. Thor is not even of this world and… no offense Cap, but you are not even from this century.”

“Like I’ve said – nobody bothered before.” Steve sighed, clearly frustrated by what was going on and Tony patted his shoulder in sympathy. “That’s a sign of bad management.”

Since there was nothing else they could do Steve seemed to decide that they should look at what was lying ahead of them. “So what does that mean for us now?”

“Probably lots of psychological evaluations…” Moaning softly Tony let his head drop back. Not something he was looking forward to. Hopefully Nash would do it personally, then it could end up being fun. Thinking of Nash…

“When is Romanoff coming back? Nash seemed eager to talk to her and I have a feeling that it’s not going to be pretty.”

“Early afternoon. I gave her a warning ahead of time. Don’t worry, she knows how to handle shrinks.” Clint seemed strangely confident and despite Tony knowing that Natasha was an expert at fucking with people’s minds, he was pretty sure that Nash wasn’t going to make it easy for her. God, shit was going to get real when Thor was coming back.

To Tony’s surprise Steve shared his doubts. “I don’t know, Clint. Nash seemed pretty angry about her writing that report about Tony which was… odd at best. Why would she even try to analyse Tony when he was about to die? Nash is right when he says that it doesn’t make much sense.”

At a loss for words Clint shrugged. “That was a thing between Fury and her. I don’t pretend that I get it.”

“You know what the narcissist with self-destructive tendencies is going to do? I’m going to check what Nash is doing. Can’t hurt to know what he is up to.”

“I don’t think he is going to like you checking on him.”

“Good thing that I don’t care then.” Tony had Jarvis taking a tiny little look into the security camera system to quicker find out where Nash was. Those damned headquarters were way too huge. Jarvis sent him the information to his phone and Tony left Clint and Steve alone to do his own little investigation. The new development was definitely interesting. Since Tony couldn’t say that he cared much about SHIELD or Fury he was almost a little excited about somebody shaking things up a little. On the other hand Tony had been able to do pretty much anything he wanted up to this point and a new person in charge wasn’t going make it as easy for them. Probably. As much as Fury annoyed him, he was pretty easy to ignore or to overrule without any consequences.

Nash was in one of the conference rooms and Tony was almost disappointed when there was nobody there to stop him entering.

“Can’t believe I am saying that, but isn’t it a bit early to watch porn?”

The psychologist didn’t even bother to turn his head, he continued to watch the video of Rayne and Loki, twirling a pencil between his fingers. “I am sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Stark, but you’ve missed the provocative parts of the video.”

“Too bad.” Tony let out an exaggerated sigh while pulling up a chair to sit down next to Nash. He might not be a psychologist or a walking, breathing manipulator like Natasha, but he had a bit of experience of how to deal with people who wanted to make his life more difficult. Nash had a no-bullshit attitude like a lot of people. Given his age, Tony thought he was about 35 years old, he had to be a hard worker and probably had no scruples walking over other people. Tony needed to find out if Nash would gain some personal benefit from throwing Fury or the Avengers under the bus. Worst case scenario would be if he only wanted to do his job. Tony didn’t trust people who couldn’t be bribed or tempted. “So… why are you watching this now? I thought you were here to give Fury a heart attack.”

“I am here to find out what mistakes were made that led to Agent Rayne manipulating his assignment and who is responsible for these mistakes.”

“Oh, I know. It was Loki! Loki was responsible for that mission blowing up in our faces. Case solved. Good work, doc. You should go home and have a nice glass of wine or have an Asian woman give you a massage. Whatever floats your boat.”

Scribbling down a few a words Nash smirked. Which was new. Normally all people associated with SHIELD rolled their eyes or turned into stone when Tony was trying to be funny. “I fear that it’s not so simple, Mr. Stark. The Avengers were involved in eight fights with Loki during the last four months. Repeated failure. When are people allowed to ask if maybe the Avengers are doing something wrong instead Loki just being that unstoppable force?”

Damn, Tony hated it when people had a point while criticizing him.

“Hey, Loki is not your average terrorist. He as superpowers in case you didn’t notice.”

“So do Thor, Doctor Banner and Captain Rogers. Your suit might not be super powered, but it can stand up to them. Not the best excuse.”

“Okay, so Loki is a special case.”

Putting down his pencil Nash turned to him and Tony hated to admit it, but he liked the condescending expression on his face. There was some amusement mixed into it, like he wasn’t actually looking down at Tony, but wouldn’t hesitate to give him shit if necessary. “Not really, Mr. Stark. Statistically the Avengers are one of SHIELD’s least successful and most ineffective operating groups.”

Yeah, so much about Tony being on the fence about liking the guy or not. He was an asshole. “Wow, where have you lived during the last two years? In a tunnel in the mountains in North Korea? The alien attack on New York? Saving the entire world? You’re welcome by the way.”

“I’m not going argue that you did this planet a huge favour, but I’m still going to view it as a single event. After that. What missions have you been on? None of your work includes any preventative measures. The Avengers are merely reacting to events that have already happened and in most cases you aren’t doing anything that the police or an anti-terrorist unit wouldn’t be able to do.”

It was hard work to make Tony lose his composure and he was still miles away from that, but anger was definitely surging. “Oh cool, show me the anti-terrorism unit that would be able to handle Loki. The magic yielding demi-god.”

“How nice of you to bring up Loki.” Nash grabbed a remote and the video of Loki and Rayne disappeared, instead some kind of classification system popped up. “There you go. All information we have on every single encounter with Loki. Every report written by the Avengers. All singing the same tune. He suddenly appeared somewhere. Stealing things or killing people. Whatever he was up to at the time. Avengers arrive, they engage in a fight. Result is always the same. Loki gets away. On the positive side we have that you indeed succeed in saving people from him, but you can never undo the damage that he has already caused. Then you wait for the next time he shows up and the game starts all over again. For almost two years no attempts were made to actually stop Loki before he could cause any more havoc. Then there was agent Rayne and we all know how that ended up. So excuse me if I ask you, Mr. Stark – how exactly are you handling Loki?”

Nash 1 : Tony 0. That much was for sure.

“So what are you going to do Professor Umbridge? Decide that we’re a waste of tax money and close us down?”

Nash smiled, shaking his head. “Isn’t it a bit soon to declare me the villain in this story? No, Mr. Stark, I have no intention to close down the Avengers. I want to make them more effective. That means there have to be changes. As a business man you must know that if you resist changes, you are not able to keep up.”

“Right, can we make these changes when we’ve found Loki and Rayne, thank you very much?”

“Sure, if you can explain me your plan to find them?” Nash picked his pencil back up, tapping it against the paper and Tony’s mouth was ridiculously dry.

“Thought so. Thank you for the talk, Mr. Stark. I want to go back to my work now.”

Fine, Tony would let him have that win, but that didn’t mean he was giving up. “Alright, have fun watching porn.”

Tony got up and had already opened the door when Nash called after him. “One more thing, Mr. Stark.”

“Yeah?”

“What does SHIELD pay you per hour?”

Now that was an unexpected question. “I am not an employee, so nothing.”

“Huh. Yesterday you were called a consultant and you’ve been involved in every mission of the Avengers, so I think it’s time that you come up with a figure and I’ll have the money retroactively transferred to your account. Same goes for Doctor Banner… Would you also be so nice and tell Thor to get a bank account? Good day, Mr. Stark.”

Well, no matter what happened, at least Tony was going to get paid.


	8. Details

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> Let's get to it :)

“Better be careful. We still have no idea what he is trying to accomplish.”

“Well, he’s going to pay me, so I am on his side now.”

Natasha had come back from her mission 30 minutes ago and ever since then the four Avengers had hidden away in a small relaxation room, discussing the entirely new situation that they were in. Tony’s comment about finally receiving a salary for dedicating most of his life to the Avengers was mostly being ignored, because Natasha had already her game face on and Clint was feeding her information. Steve had remained mostly passive until now.

“It’s a barely disguised attempt by the Council to get Fury out of the way. Either they want to get the Avengers under their direct control  or they will replace Fury with someone who will do their biding.” Natasha did a quick sum-up which wasn’t surprising. She was the last one to arrive to the party, but seemed already a step ahead of them. Somehow Tony thought nonetheless that Nash was miles ahead of them.

“Like Nash?” Steve asked with a raised eyebrow and Natasha shook her head with determination. “No, he is just here to find the dirt. Sooner or later he’ll have all of us sit down separately and he is going to do the usual shrink routine. Trying to make us stumble over our own words until we say something against the administration of the Avengers or Fury. We just gotta be careful and can’t let him confuse us.”

Tony didn’t expect Steve to be the buzzkill. “Uhm, isn’t it possible that he would also like to talk to us to make sure we’re doing alright and that we’re fit to do our job?”

Natasha merely raised an eyebrow at Steve and Tony immediately joined in. “I’m with Steve on this one. Is it really the best idea to immediately assume that he has an agenda?”

“He said himself that he was sent by the Council to see what’s going wrong here.” Clint pointed out and Tony shrugged. “Yeah, so? Evaluations are a normal thing.”

“You can’t be that naïve, Tony. He has already made up his mind what he is going to tell the Council. They sent him to find dirt, so he is going to find dirt. That’s his job.” Natasha almost sounded amused by Tony’s assumptions, but that wasn’t going to fly. “If you think that he is an agent for hire, just say so.”

The smile Natasha offered him was clearly friendly and Tony wasn’t sure if she intended to give him the feeling like she was talking to a child. Somebody who had no idea how things were working in the real world. “Everybody who works at SHIELD is an agent for hire. It’s just a question where your loyalties lie.”

Tony had a lot to say about this and for once Steve beat him to it. “That’s a horrible thing to say and if it’s true… Well, then there is a good reason why he is doing an investigation.”

“I didn’t mean to say that everybody here would jump off the ship if they got a better offer, but I clearly feel more committed to Fury than to the Council. Don’t you agree?”

“Actually no.” Steve shook his head. “I feel committed to you guys and to what we do as Avengers.”

Tony thought it was rather funny that Natasha actually seemed surprised that Steve didn’t think the sun was shining out of Fury’s ass. She recovered quickly though. “Alright. If we want to be able to keep doing what we’re doing, we have to support each other in this. Who would you rather like see making the decisions? Fury or the Council? The ones who wanted to send a nuke to New York City?”

That was a good point, but Tony still didn’t feel at ease with the entire situation.

The conversation was coming to an end anyway, Natasha’s phone went off and everybody knew what that call was going to be about. Putting the phone on speak Natasha answered the call. “Romanoff speaking.”

First surprise – it wasn’t Nash.

“Agent Romanoff, you were supposed to immediately head to conference 12 after returning from your mission. You’ve been back for 20 minutes. Care to explain the delay?”

“I am sorry. I had to freshen up a bit. I’ll be there in a minute.” Natasha was already putting on a fake smile that looked so real, it scared the crap out of Tony. “Boys, I seem to have a date.”

“I am coming with you.” Clint got up from his chair. “Somebody has to formally introduce you.”

Fine, so they were all escorting her, although Tony thought they looked a bit ridiculous like that. Well, they could always pretend that they were going to grab a coffee. There was no need for them to all knock at the conference room’s door, since Nash was talking to some run-of-the-mill agent in the middle of the hall. Tony overheard Clint whispering into Natasha’s ear who was who although she surely already knew that. As soon as Nash noticed them coming over he fell silent and ever so slightly raised his left eyebrow. This was awkward.

Not for Natasha. She was all smiles as she held out her hand to greet Nash. One had to admire her for making it look so natural. “Doctor Nash, sorry for the wait. I needed a moment to make myself presentable. Natasha Romanoff, looking forward to work with you.”

Nash tilted his head, his eyes running down Natasha’s body in the most obvious way. Tony was utterly amazed that it was actually possible to do that to a person that looked like Natasha and yet there was nothing sexual about it. Actually, Tony had no idea what it was.

Finally Nash grabbed Natasha’s hand, but he didn’t share her smile. “Miss Romanoff, I am very aware that you wanted me to notice, but could we please save the lies for the actual conversation? You should at least be able to state your name without uttering a falsehood in the very same sentence.”

Yeah, that man really didn’t like Natasha. No surprise there. Honestly, Tony was wondering what Natasha was trying to accomplish here, because she must have anticipated that reaction.

“Sir, I am sorry that you have that impression. I am sure we will be able to clear up all potential misunderstandings. Let’s go?”

Nash nodded, his eyes ghosting over the other Avengers. Not impressed. “I fear your boys club has to wait outside.”

Steve was already opening his mouth to say what he was thinking about being called a boy, but Tony stepped on his foot beforehand. Eventually Nash and Natasha disappeared in the conference room and for the rest of them there was only thing left to do now. “Let’s get a cup of coffee.”

 ***

Christian found Loki on the balcony. Sitting at the table, reading a book, a glass of orange juice in front of him. For a short moment Christian asked himself how most of SHIELD would react if they saw him like this. So completely casual with his hair pulled back in a bun, wearing a white t-shirt and black baggy pants. He looked so completely different and yet completely like himself at the same time.

Christian made himself known with a soft “Hey” and Loki reacted with a smiled, putting his book down. “Hey, you’re obviously feeling better.”

“Yes. Sometimes a short nap can do miracles… Obviously.” Sitting down next to Loki Christian stretched his arms, so ridiculously pleased that he didn’t feel any pain while doing that. “I am still a bit tired, but that’s all. I actually feel rather good.”

Despite his pleased smile Loki looked a bit sceptical. “This morning moving your limbs was causing you pain. I honestly didn’t except you to feel better so soon.”

“That’s a good sign then, right?”

“It might, but it’s too soon to tell. You should definitely eat something though. Stay here. I’ll get you something.” Standing up Loki pressed a kiss on Christian’s temple and then headed back inside. Tilting his head back Christian enjoyed feeling the sun on his face. The scent of the sea was entering his nose and Christian definitely wanted to go out for a swim. In a couple of days hopefully, when his mangled body wouldn’t attract as much attention anymore. Depended on how long Loki planned on staying in Monaco.

“Here.”

Loki had brought him a little bowl salad with crispy pieces of samon which was definitely delicious. While Christian was eating Loki remained mostly silent. Only once Christian was finished Loki reached out and gently took a hold of Christian’s wrist. Letting his fingers run up Christian’s arm Loki closely watched the skin beneath his fingers. “What are you doing right now?”

“Trying to feel the magic inside you.”

Christian felt a wave of excitement running through him. “And?”

“Hard to tell. It’s not supposed to be communicated with or to be even felt. We should wait another day to test it the results.” Loki stated with finality, letting go off Christian’s wrist.

Humming softly Christian stole Loki’s glass and took a long sip. “How are we going to do that? It’s supposed to make it harder to hurt me.”

Sardonically Loki replied immediately. “Try to hurt you. It’s rather obvious.”

Granted, it seemed indeed pretty obvious. “Why do I feel like you are looking forward to that?”

“Because I am.” Loki smirked at him. “Because I am eager to see the results and I am rather curious what to expect. Like I said – this is completely new ground.”

Christian simply nodded and Loki’s smirk turned into a smile before he picked his book back up. While Christian was completely content with sitting there and watching him in silence, Loki had enough of it after a couple of minutes. “We’re not going out, because I still want you to rest, but you’re not planning on admiring me all day, right?”

“What if I do? I didn’t get to see this in quite a long time and this…” Gesturing at their surroundings, at the entire scenery and then again at Loki. “… this is perfect. I am perfectly happy.”

Quirking an eyebrow Loki tilted his head. “I would be severely disappointed if it was this easy to make you happy.”

“Do you expect me to be miserable when I am with you in a 5 star hotel, right next to the sea with my pockets full of cash?”

For a rather short time Loki seemed to actually think about it. “No, it’s a pretty good setting, I’ll admit, but there are still so many more levels to go to. Can’t be satisfied yet.”

Satisfied? Christian didn’t have to think about that too hard. First of all there was the fact that they had been sleeping in the very same bed and had done nothing but sleeping. Then there was Christian’s body that of course still didn’t look like it was supposed to. Then there were so many different worlds they still needed to check out. “I am not going to take it back, I really like this right now, but I admit… there are still a lot of things that I want.”

Clearly liking this answer Loki turned back to his book, smiling. “Good.”

Feeling pretty good himself Christian leaned back and closed his eyes, enjoying the sun.

 ***

“His exact words? ‘You are ridiculously overpaid. So we are going to adjust your salary.’”

Steve was still struggling for words when Tony burst out laughing. “That’s not funny!”

“Oh, I think it’s hilarious.” Tony was snickering, not holding anything back. “First he announced that Bruce, Thor and me should finally get paid and then he cuts your salary. Damn, that guy is pissed that played psychologist on me.”

Natasha’s face was grim, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Steve couldn’t help but think that Tony and him had been right, she had underestimated the situation.

“When did this suddenly become about money?” Luckily Clint was asking this question, because Steve frankly didn’t have any clue either.

“He is trying to rile us up. Play us against each other. Trying to make us fight among each other.” Natasha shrugged and Tony immediately grunted dismissively. “By cutting your pay and increasing mine? Hello? Billionaire? I don’t give too much of a damn about money.”

“Even if… Two hours ago you were perfectly sure that he was here to get rid of Fury, right?” Natasha answered Steve’s question with a short nod. “Okay, then why should he try to ruin the Avengers? If the Council wants to get control, then why would he do something like that?”

“I don’t think it’s about ruining the Avengers.” Everybody’s eyes were on her as Natasha sat down, sighing softly. “But about showing how the team doesn’t work as it is supposed to work. Who are they going to blame? Fury. Then somebody is going to come in to take over and I can guarantee that’s going to be someone that we don’t like.”

Although Steve wasn’t quite as convinced as her about what was going on behind the scenes, Steve would be willing to agree that their lives wouldn’t get easier if Fury should be replaced by one of the Council’s men. After what happened in New York, there was no way they could trust them. “Alright, fine. It’s not like we are going to let anybody manipulate us. I say we let Nash continue doing whatever he is doing and concentrate on more important matters. Like Loki and Rayne. We can’t forget them over what is happening right now or ignore them.”

“Unlikely to happen. Regardless of what he is doing, Nash isn’t ignoring Loki. When I went to talk to him, he was watching video footage of Loki and Rayne. To find out what went wrong during the mission.”

Steve shot Tony a punishing look for forgetting to share that piece of information with them.

“Okay, we need to do some brainstorming. The mission was definitely a disaster. Can you think of anything that he might use to blame one of us or Fury for this failure?”

Honestly? Steve had thought from the very beginning that this entire mission was a bad idea. Unfortunately he couldn’t say that, because it had come from Fury.

Before they could actually get into different ideas, they finally received some good news. All of their phones went off to inform them that Thor had come back from Asgard. The instant joy got tainted a bit when Steve realised that they had to tell him that his little brother had broken Rayne out of custody. This wasn’t going to be a nice talk.

Fury ordered them all to meet up in the conference room they usually used and 10 minutes later they were reunited. Salutations were tensed though, Thor was wearing a constant frown. His silly smile completely absent. “I fear I come with unsettling news, my friends.”

“Yeah, you’re not the only one, point break.” Tony was too fast, nobody of them got the chance to break the news gently to Thor. “Your brother decided star in his own fucked up romance novel. He pulled one of his damned tricks, swooped in here and got out his boyfriend. One guard was killed. Great day that was. What have you been up to?”

Thor’s face had already been sombre enough and Tony’s words didn’t do anything to lighten him up. “I must admit I didn’t expect my brother to forgive the agent, but I was afraid he was going to cause havoc in some shape or form. The news I have are confusing. I haven’t made sense out of it yet myself. My brother was seen in another world where he slaughtered a creature considered holy by the inhabitants. His action is rather odd since my brother has never been known for enjoying hunting or killing animals as a sport. People watched him as he cut out the creature’s heart and left with it. The only explanation I could come up with was him using the heart for creating new spells or other purposes related to magic. Every sorcerer I talked to had no idea what he could use the heart for. Which means my brother has come up with an entirely new purpose and I dread what that might be.”

“Oh, thank god!”

Everybody shot Clint a glance that asked if he had lost his mind.

“What? Crazy god coming up with plans and magical mumbo-jambo to destroy us all? Perfect timing. With that on the horizon, SHIELD, the Council and Nash can’t lose time over details like organisation, administration and whatever. They’ll have to focus on that. Just add a few brutal details and they’ll have to deal with it.”

Steve didn’t agree with him on the details, but the rest seemed about right. There had to be priorities.

“Making up stuff won’t be necessary, Agent Barton.” Fury sounded dry, not like he cared too much. Which was probably the opposite of what he was trying to achieve. “Loki planning something is definitely enough to get everybody’s attention. Thor, we need more detailed information about the creature and the place that he…”

There was no knock at the door, Steve noticed that with displeasure. Nash simply opened it and came bursting right in, showing no respect for the conversation that was going on. At least he was smiling. Fury was having none of it though. “Doctor Nash, this is a confidential meeting.”

“Oh, I am aware, but my level of security clearance is actually higher than all of yours.”

Yes, that didn’t make him very likable.

“Anyways, I am merely here to introduce myself since I haven’t met Thor yet.” Still smiling Nash walked around the table and Thor immediately got up and held out his hand like they had taught him. “Thor, son of Odin. It’s an honour to make your acquaintance son of Nash.”

Steve heard Nash laugh and it made it so hard to know what think of him, because the amusement sounded so real and by no means mean-spirited.

“Actually, it’s son of Frank. Graham Nash, I’ve been looking forward to meet you. I am very curious about a lot of things that you’ll have to eventually tell me about. Tomorrow would be a good time. I have called Doctor Banner and asked him to make some time to join us at the headquarters. I would like to talk to all Avengers at the same time. A little group session. Looking forward to talk to you gentlemen, Miss Romanoff.”

Nash shot them another smile and then headed out the door.

No, that couldn’t be good.

 ***

Yawning softly Christian refused to open his eyes and snuggled his face against what could only be Loki’s shoulder. Unfortunately that had Loki roll over, away from him. Christian took that as sign to get out of bed. Loki remained where he was, still fast asleep. That was definitely a sight to behold.

Almost half asleep himself Christian slowly made his way into the bathroom, stretching his limbs while doing so.

As Christian reached for his toothbrush he stopped mid-motion. In disbelief Christian stared at his reflection, then carefully brought up one hand to run his fingers over his upper lip. There was only soft tissue. The cut had disappeared. Christian released a shaky breath and he took a closer look. A sensation somewhere between excitement and fear overcame him when he realised the bruises had also vanished. They were all gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question time:
> 
> \- What is Nash going to discuss with the Avengers?  
> \- Since Christian is feeling better, what are they going to do?


	9. Would you hurt me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> Loki and Christian do some experimenting and Nash has a conversation with the Avengers...
> 
> One of these two events includes stabbing

Christian’s entire body was shaking as he opened the door to the bedroom. Opening was too much of a beautiful world. Somehow, rather clumsily and very loudly he got the door open and it was enough to have Loki stir. Christian would have woken him anyway.

“Loki.”

Rather lazily Loki opened his eyes, rolling onto his side. “Hmm?”

“Look at me!”

Still not in a rush Loki propped himself up on his elbows and did as he was told and Christian was going crazy. “You are beautiful.”

And the world stopped. That was all it took. One special word uttered by the only person from which it would matter. Suddenly Christian felt like he could calm down. There was time to explain, time to talk. To understand.

“I… I woke up like this.”

The corners of Loki’s mouth formed a small grin. “No, you didn’t.”

For a second Christian was confused, then looked down at himself and it became rather clear. In the bathroom he had stripped off his clothes except for his underwear to check out if all the other bruises had indeed disappeared. Which they had.

Loki hadn’t seen him like this for over seven months, because Christian had purposefully hidden all of his body away. Because of the bruises and the weight loss. The latter problem was still very present and Christian hadn’t even thought of it when he had entered the bedroom. “I didn’t mean…” Shaking his head Christian quickly came closer, then climbed on the bed to offer Loki a better view. “Look at my face. Here.” To emphasize his words Christian touched his own eyebrow and lip where the two most obvious injuries had been.

Now actually sitting up Loki smiled, hooking one finger beneath Christian’s chin. “Gorgeous.” Another smirk and Christian was starting to get annoyed, frustrated and at the same time the glee on Loki’s face made him laugh. “Will you stop that? Please!”

Chuckling Loki let himself fall back into the cushions his hand resting on Christian’s thigh. “It’s fun… and I wasn’t lying. You are gorgeous.”

“My split lip completely healed overnight. There were bruises all over my side… huge ones. They are gone. Overnight.”

Finally Loki turned a bit more serious, he still looked perfectly happy and at ease though. “I am surprised. I didn’t expect that to happen.”

“You didn’t think they’d heal that fast?”

“No. The magic is supposed to make it harder to hurt you, not to heal you. I guess we’ll have to do some tests eventually. Not now though… Good morning.” Leaning back up again Loki covered Christian’s mouth with his own. There was so much that Christian wanted to say, ask and then even more, but Loki’s lips were soft, demanding and absolutely everything that Christian had missed so severely. The slight sting he had felt every time Loki had kissed him had no disappeared and that left him longing for more.

Sure, it wasn’t perfect yet, but Christian suddenly knew for sure that it would be. Because something had changed within him because of Loki and this hadn’t even been the entire journey. Merely the beginning of a world of wonders.

Taking control Christian cupped Loki’s face turning the kiss in something more intense, chasing a desire that he had been trying to push down for several days now. The second Christian gave up his weak grip on it, it washed over him with a sheer force that he couldn’t and didn’t want to fight. For a second he could feel Loki’s smile against his lips, but Christian simply kissed it away, almost swallowing it.

Loki was right after all. Nobody should ever have any sort of control over them. Least of all SHIELD. Shifting around Christian straddled Loki properly, his fingers directing Loki’s head so he could kiss him as he pleased. Hard, almost bruising. No finesse or much care. Christian’s body took over and it just wanted to feel all of Loki’s. Moving closer Christian rocked his hips against and the other one put his hands on Christian’s waist, pulling him closer. For him it was just a single moment that consisted of heat, light-headedness and of them. With anyone else Christian would have probably felt ashamed for how quickly he got excited and how fast it was over. With a shudder and his lips still locked with Loki’s. A pleasant feeling of relief spread inside Christian’s body as all tension slipped out of his muscles. Resting his forehead against Loki’s Christian took a few shaky breaths and enjoyed gentle fingers running up and down his spine.

He could feel the vibrations of Loki humming softly, almost a purr. “Now that was a pleasant turn of events…”

Christian felt his cheeks heating up, but he didn’t actually feel embarrassed. After all it hadn’t been the first time that they had been overcome with desire or lust. Then again, until now they had always taken their clothes off. Since Loki didn’t seem to care, Christian wasn’t going to bother either. He was craving for this man and Christian would never feel ashamed for that. Not even for a second.

Feeling confident about himself in these kind of situations was something else entirely.

“I really missed you…” Christian muttered breathlessly, fingers of both hands running loosely through the shock of black, soft hair.

“Me too… Those were some very lonely months.” There was laughter in Loki’s voice which caused Christian to feel a sting of jealously. Until now the thought hadn’t crossed his mind that Loki had been with anybody else during his imprisonment. It was possible and the mere idea had Christian wanting to find that hypothetical person to rip them apart.

“How about we hit the shower?” Loki nipped at his earlobe and Christian tried not to shudder. “Yeah, we definitely need one.”

After another kiss got out of bed and Christian didn’t waste another thought on it when he stripped out his underwear and stepped underneath the spraying water with Loki. Sure, it wasn’t perfect yet. Not what Loki deserved. He’d get there.

In the shower Loki was constantly touching him, not in a sensual way though. The concentrated look in his eyes and the steady movements of his fingers reminded Christian much more a medical examination. Which wasn’t too far off. Loki checked his lip, his eyebrow, then his neck, then his chest. At least that part should have had Christian feeling uncomfortable since Loki simply had to notice the difference. There was no time for something like that though. The need to know and to understand what was happening to him was so much stronger.

“Are you finding what you’re looking for?”

“I have a few ideas…” Loki mumbled absently, suddenly grazing the nail of his thumb over Christian’s skin. Too hard. Christian could feel it sinking in, but it didn’t hurt. In slight confusion he raised an eyebrow at Loki who smirked in response. “We’ll need to make a few tests. Otherwise I can only guess about the results.”

“Then let’s do that.”

Another smirk. “So impatient…” Loki gently stirred him back against the shower wall, kissing him again. His mouth was sweet, leaving a soft tingle on Christian’s lips and yes, tests could wait a while longer.

 ***

Steve and Tony were chatting as the entered the conference room, but instantly fell silent when they realised they weren’t the first ones to arrive. Nash was sitting there behind two huge piles of files, writing something into his open notepad. Even from the other side of the room Steve could tell that his handwriting was immaculate and gorgeous.

“Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for being on time. Please, serve yourself.”

Tony didn’t even try to hide his surprise that there was coffee and breakfast in front of the file piles. “What there is actual food? This smells like bribery.”

“No, Mr. Stark. What you smell is bacon.” Nash smiled at them, then turned back to his writing. Steve and Tony shared a slightly dazzled look before they sat down. “Thanks.”

“You know, you’re doing a lot of flip-flopping here, makes it hard to like you, but since you offered me breakfast… you gained a few plus points.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at Tony who shrugged and instantly reached out for a slice of bread and a few stripes of bacon. Unlike Tony Steve was content with a cup of coffee. “Is this going to take all morning? Since you’ve got us something to eat…”

“I don’t know yet, Captain. There are lots of things to talk about, but it depends on you as a group, how long this meeting is going to take.“ Nash replied casually, not looking up from his notes.

“Bacon is great, Cap. You should dig in before Thor shows up and swallows the whole table.” Tony was munching, making little sounds that clearly told everyone that he thought the food was delicious.

Steve commented that with a sigh and then caught side of Nash smiling softly. As soon as the psychologist noticed he looked back down though. Almost as if Steve had noticed him doing something wrong. Huh, that was a piece of information that Steve was going to lock away for now.

It only took a couple of minutes until the door was being opened again and the rest of the Avengers walked inside. Natasha raised one eyebrow when she saw the breakfast, while Thor and Bruce seemed much happier about it.

There was a short ‘Hello’ between all the Avengers before Nash introduced himself to Bruce since they hadn’t met each other yet. “An honour to meet you, Doctor Banner. Please everybody sit down, eat something. We’re not in a rush.”

Steve immediately noticed that he wasn’t the only one who thought that this sitting was awkward and Thor and Tony remained the only ones to actually eat something. Bruce got himself a cup of tea, Clint a coffee while Natasha just sat there with her arms crossed. Did Nash write that down?

“First of all – thank you for finding the time for this little meeting.”

Weird start and Clint was quick to point that out. “It’s not like we’ve had much of a choice. We were ordered to come here.”

“Well, that might be the case for Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff and you, Agent Barton. Mr. Stark, Doctor Banner and Thor, as I had to find out, are not getting paid by SHIELD and have never signed any form of contract with this organisation. Therefore aren’t employees and are free to do whatever they want.” Nash explained matter-of-factly and then picked up a couple of papers from the top of the left pile. “Speaking of that – I have three drafts of a contract that would make you official members of the Avengers. Including everything, health insurance, salary, days off and so on. Please let your lawyers look over them and present me the changes you wish to make within the next two weeks. Mr. Stark, if you could be so kind to introduce Thor to a member of your team of legal representation? I would organize a lawyer paid by SHIELD, but that would be a conflict of interest.”

Steve frowned as Nash handed out the contracts. Thor naturally seemed confused, while Bruce nodded in understanding and Tony mumbled something like “About time… I can’t wait to read the paragraphs about legal liability.”

“I am sorry, but what did you mean when you said – Make them official Avengers? We all already are the Avengers.” Steve asked and Nash was quick to respond. “The Avengers are a SHIELD organisation. Unfortunately only the three of you are SHIELD employees and therefore we are in a terribly vulnerable situation if anyone should ever decide to sue us.”

“Or if I decided to sue SHIELD if I broke my leg during a mission.” Tony pointed out and Nash nodded. “Yes, indeed. Until now this group has been led with severe negligence and we have to rectify some of the mistakes.”

“Mistakes?” Natasha quirked an eyebrow and Nash cocked his head, clearly seeing this as a challenge. “Wouldn’t you call it a mistake that these three men risk their lives doing dangerous work for SHIELD and they’re not even getting paid? It’s rather shameful, Miss Romanoff.”

“I’m just wondering. You let Tony, a billionaire, choose his salary, they can change their contracts as they like please… while you’re cutting my pay check. It seems rather odd.”

“It’s rather simple, Miss Romanoff. Ever since you’ve become an Avenger, you’ve been working less hours. You are of course always free to demand a renegotiation of your contract. Anyways, I don’t want to spend time talking about administrative issues. There are a lot of more important things that need to be addressed. First of all, I need to inform you that I have scheduled a psychological evaluation with each of you, starting tomorrow with you, Mr. Stark. Here’s an agenda for every one of you.”

All of them got a sheet of paper and Nash continued to talk. “Now what I want to discuss with all of you the Avenger’s biggest problem – Loki. Every single mission report is telling the same story, failure after failure to capture him or to even stop him from causing more harm. Unfortunately there seems to have never been any attempts to find out why. I want to talk about that with you as a group. Why is it so hard for you six partly super-powered persons to overcome one individual?”

 ***

“I’ve seen bigger seas. Bluer ones. One that was deep red. Actual red. Generally more impressive. But I kinda prefer your Mediterranean. I can’t even tell you why… I love the smell of it.” Loki shrugged and kept drawing patterns with his toes in the sand.

Christian smiled, waiting for the next wave to engulf his feet. This was such a cliché, but he couldn’t find anything else but pure enjoyment in talking a stroll down the beach, hand in hand with Loki. “I’d like to see that, you know? The red sea.”

“It’s not called that… it’s filled with nasty creatures by the way. Huge enough to swallow both of us with one gulp.”

“Are you trying to talk me out of it?”

“No. Just telling it like it is.” Loki smirked, then immediately grumbled when they had to move aside because of a jogger. “At least most other places aren’t as crowded. All of Midgard is so full of people. Terribly annoying.”

“Yeah, I agree. I would prefer being alone too, but that’s pretty much impossible… Too many tourists. Even around breakfast time.”

Loki suddenly stopped, wearing on his lips that smirk that caused the most pleasant shudder to run down Christian’s back. “What? What are you thinking about?”

“Just giving us a bit of privacy.” Loki did a soft wave with his left hand and one second later they were completely alone on the beach. Not another soul, not even a towel.

Smiling whole-heartedly Christian slid his arms around Loki’s waist and brushed his lips over his jaw. “I like this… I like this a lot.”

After chuckling softly Loki kissed him on the lips which made Christian pull him closer.

“Come on, sit down. I want to try something.” Both of them sank down in the wet sand and Loki grabbed one of Christian’s hands. Picking up one a rather sharp stone Loki pressed it against Christian’s thumb. “Tell me when it starts hurting.”

Taking a little breath Christian nodded. He wanted to find out as badly as Loki. No, probably even more. The pressure intensified, Christian could feel the stone pressing deeper into his skin. “It’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt.”

Loki nodded. “Alright.”

His movements were too fast for Christian to see. He felt them though, a sudden pain across his palm. Christian jerked his hand out off Loki’s grip and stared at his hand. There was a line visible and Loki hummed, looking at him fascinatedly. “Was that a reflex or did it hurt?”

“It hurt, but… I think it was more of a reflex. The pain wasn’t bad, I think I could I have tolerated it for quite some time.”

Grabbing Christian’s hand Loki rubbed his thumb over the palm. “That should have cut your skin, but it didn’t. I’m going to use a knife now.”

“Go ahead.”

Christian was far from asking where the knife had come from, but it wasn’t one of Loki’s golden daggers. Loki took his time to trace the lines of Christian’s hand before applying pressure. Once more there was the feeling of steel cutting into his skin and Christian gritted his teeth, but he wasn’t going to pull away. Sure, it hurt, but definitely not as much as it should. Eventually the pressure disappeared and Loki discarded of the dagger, now closely examining Christian’s hand.

“Marvellous, not a single drop of blood.”

“What?” Leaning forward Christian made the same discovery. “That’s… I could feel it cutting…”

“But the metal is not strong enough… which is better than I expected. But you felt pain, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Unfortunate.” Loki indeed seemed disappointed and Christian hated himself for it, although he logically knew that it wasn’t his fault. “Well, I guess it would have been a bit much to ask to make you immune to pain. Still… we’ll need to go a bit of an extreme to find out how good you are protected.”

Christian laughed despite not feeling like it. “Why do I have the feeling that your plan involves stabbing me?”

“Because you are smart.” Content with Christian Loki kissed him, then instantly turned serious. “Don’t worry. If this goes wrong, I’ll be able to take care of you.”

“Do you think I’d doubt that? I don’t. I trust you and I know what you can do.” Or at least Christian knew some of it, but he wanted to know all of it and if Loki wanted to ram a knife between Christian’s rips, that was fine too. Only fair. Also, there was absolute certainty that Loki was going to take care of him. “Come on, go ahead. Waiting for it is the worst part about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

It started with a kiss. Loki’s lips were pretty much caressing Christian’s. Soft, sweet, kissing him with an intensity that Cristian had never experienced with anyone else. The pressure against the weak muscles of his stomach came like a surprise. Sharp and unyielding and constant. Yet the pain wasn’t as intense as it should be, Christian could tell that. Once more there was this urge to show Loki that he could take all of it, that Loki didn’t have to hold back on his power because of him. So foolish. They kept the kiss going, Loki’s hand slid down the back of Christian’s neck and eventually the pressure was too much to bear and Christian pulled back.

“Okay, is that enough?”

Loki hinted at a smile as he pushed up Christian’s t-shirt. Christian looked down at himself to find out that the knife hadn’t pierced his skin. Not a single drop of blood.

 ***

“Well, thank you, agent Barton and although your combat analysis is absolutely fascinating… and with fascinating I mean boring, I would like to hear from Thor now.”

Clint’s mouth snapped shut while Thor was looking rather confused. All of them were slightly out of there depth since nobody had ever asked in so much detail about their encounters with Loki. Normally they told Fury that Loki had teleported away and that was it.

“Uhm, I agree with Agent Barton. My brother is a gifted magic user, he is capabilities that we don’t possess and most of the time they allow him to be one step ahead.”

Unimpressed Nash kept tapping his pen against the notepad. “You’ve known Loki for over a thousand years and you still can’t think of a way to capture him?”

In response Thor scowled. “Loki knows me just as well as I know him.”

Nash quickly wrote something down and then leaned back in his chair. “How do you feel about your brother, Thor?”

No hesitation there. “Loki is my kin. I love him.”

“Family ties, I understand. What do you think about what he has done on Earth? Or before that?”

Tony raised an eyebrow, he had a bad feeling about this.

“I am deeply saddened that it has come to this, that my brother has changed so much, but fear not – I have every intention to stop him.”

Good answer. Keep it at that. Shut up. No more.

Of course, Nash was only getting started. “Glad you that you bring it up, since I’ve wanted to ask anyway… Stopping your brother. What does that mean? Personally, what did you hope to accomplish with agent Rayne’s mission?”

“What is the purpose of this question? Thor didn’t have anything to do with how this mission got started.”

Nash reacted with an impatient wave to Natasha’s question. “I am talking to Thor, thank you. You may answer?”

A little bit unsure Thor glanced at Natasha and then turned back to Nash. “I hope that we would finally have the opportunity to imprison him, to stop him from causing any more harm.”

“And personally? Fine, SHIELD would have captured him, locked him up – would you have visited him?”

“Of course. Every day. I would talk to him. I would try to reach him. Make him come back to sanity. Maybe find my brother again in that mad man that you all got to know.”

Tony nodded, Thor was doing fine, but if Nash didn’t stop digging soon, they would be in serious trouble.

“Alright, I am curious to hear what you think about this. You love you brother, there is nothing wrong about that. Let’s assume agent Rayne would have ended up in a situation during which he would have had no other choice but to seriously hurt your brother to save his own life. What would have been your reaction to such an event?”

Frowning softly Thor shook his head. “Agent Rayne is not physically capable to hurt my brother.”

Okay, maybe there was still a chance to bring this home. Tony cleared his throat to switch the topic. “Hey, what do you guys think about…”

Now it was him who got the disinterested wave. It was kind of disturbing how easily Nash could shut him down. “I am still talking to Thor… Alright. Then let me be clearer about this. Just before the invasion Loki was in SHIELD custody and Director Fury alluded that torture might be a possibility to get Loki to tell you about the tesseract.”

“That wasn’t considered an option.” Thor replied sternly, his features hard as stone and Tony knew that they were fucked.

“Oh, I assure you it was considered.”

Tony marvelled at Nash’s face. Now hour ago he had worn that perfectly sweet and perfectly expression. Which had been real, Tony was convinced of that. He was also sure that the hard, cruel stare was just as real.

“The World Security Council sent a nuclear missile to New York City. Don’t be so naïve that they or SHIELD would have hesitated even a moment before ripping your brother’s body apart if they thought it would help them.”

Swallowing hard Tony saw Thor clenching one hand into a fist.

“Would you have tolerated that?”

Growling deeply Thor shook his head. “Never.”

A few quick strokes on the notepad. “Now let’s create another scenario… Try to imagine you are standing at a crossroad. To your right there is one of your fellow Avengers. To the left is your brother. Both of them are in mortal danger. Which way do you go?”

Instantly Thor opened his mouth, but then no sound passed his lips. Nobody else dared to say a word, not even to point out how terribly unfair that question was and how unlikely to ever become reality. All that mattered was that Thor couldn’t answer and Nash nodded, having obviously expected that outcome.

“Giving these circumstances I think you will understand why I can’t be sure that you are indeed giving 100 percent in the Avenges’ mission to capture Loki. Which puts me in the very uncomfortable position to consider removing you from this team entirely.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question time -
> 
> \- Is Nash really going to throw Thor out?  
> \- What are they going to use Christian's new ability for?


	10. A question of trust

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> So since a lot of issues got suddenly solved Christian doesn't want to sit around anymore ;)

All of them started at once like little children protesting against the newest unpleasant rule that their father had put in place. Just like a parent Nash sat there, completely unfazed, waiting for them to have all said their piece and calm down.

“You can’t do that. It’s been all fun and games until now, but I am going to stop you right there. You are not going to start throwing people out. Nice try.” Tony was putting on his CEO asshole stick, because there was no way that Nash was going to meddle with their line-up.

It was fairly upsetting that Nash didn’t even seem to be annoyed by him. When he turned to Tony he almost looked friendly. “I am sorry that there are still misunderstandings in place, but I’ll gladly clear them up. I do in fact can change the complete line-up of the Avengers if I consider it necessary. If you had listened to me carefully, you would have heard that I said I would have to consider Thor’s removal. Which cannot be an easy decision since he is clearly an irreplaceable member of this group. There are still a lot of questions that need to be asked, so I would be very glad if you could wait a little longer before you start complaining about a decision that hasn’t even been made yet.”

Yes, Tony was definitely starting to hate him.

“With all due respect, son of Frank, you don’t have the power to tell me what to do.” Thor had a point there, but Nash only rewarded him with a smile and Tony might be tempted to believe that he was colder than Natasha.

“Let me try to make you understand where I am coming from. Unfortunately I am not that familiar with Asgardian history or culture. Naturally since the entire population of this planet didn’t know that you and your world existed only one year ago. Would you allow me to make some assumptions? Correct me anytime you feel it’s necessary.”

Clearly taken aback by the seemingly honest friendliness Thor nodded, looking slightly confused.

“I guess Asgard has had to deal with foreign invaders. People who wanted to conquer your world or bring misery over it.”

“There have been thousands.”

“Alright, then let’s assume one of them came close. Very close. He was something that your world wasn’t prepared for. He came with weapons that you have never seen before. Nothing you could have ever been prepared for. You barely defeat him and lots of people lose their lives. The other ones are afraid, because he made them realise that they aren’t safe. They know that he is still out there. Somebody else helped you to defeat him. Let’s say his father, cousin or brother. Who claims to love the man that brought your people so much pain. Would you trust him with the task of finding him? Or would you want to do that yourself? Because I am not sure if I were able to trust them. Trust them to put somebody they love behind bars for the rest of their life.”

Nash’s beautiful eyes were drilling right through Thor who looked much more thoughtful than Tony would have expected.

“Son of Frank, I understand your worries, but you have my word that I will do anything in my power to stop Loki from ever hurting a human being again. You can rely on me.”

Thor was doing that thing again, talking in his deep, official prince of Asgard voice. Like he was taking an oath. That should be enough to impress a person. Not Nash though. In comparison to Thor he sounded horribly dry. “Can I?”

That was all he said. Voice filled with hard doubts and Tony wanted Thor to crush him. To tell him that he was ready and willing to take Loki apart anytime. Unfortunately the exact opposite happened. Thor remained silent, his gaze fixed on Nash’s face and Tony could tell that another phase of the fight had been lost.

“I suppose you understand after all. Look, since you’ve all started yelling at me the first time, I’ll try to be more precise. Only a person without common sense would completely give up on Thor’s help. Your abilities are one of a kind and therefore irreplaceable. So is your knowledge on Loki. I am not going to cut you off this team, but if the Avengers should be charged again with a new mission to capture Loki – you will not be part of it.”

It happened so rarely, but Tony was rendered speechless. The cute guy with the diploma in psychology hadn’t just told Thor, an Asgardian prince, that he wasn’t going to be included in the fight against his little brother. That took some balls. Or complete madness.

Thor remained silent, probably too shocked to reply, but Natasha was very willing to help out with that. “So without ever talking to Thor, you just assume that he is compromised.”

Yeah, Nash and Natasha weren’t going to kiss and make up anytime soon. “No, I am applying common sense. There is a reason why a judge can’t be in charge of the trial of a loved one. There is something called bias. All I am assuming is that Thor loves his brother and therefore he shouldn’t be the one going after him. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t value his opinion. I have a lot of questions about your brother and what he might do now…”

“Wait a second!” Clint interrupted him and Nash nearly quirked an eyebrow. “We’re not going to talk about this? You’re just going to say that Thor is out and that’s it?”

“Yes, agent Barton. That’s it. No police office in this world would be allowed to lead the investigation on their loved ones. It’s common sense. Common sense like everybody of you receiving a salary. Anyway, I want to talk about Loki. The reason for the Avenger’s existence. Thor, whenever your brother is in a relationship, does he have some typical behaviour? Domesticated? Causing even more trouble? Anything?”

“I am not quite sure…” Thor hesitated and Nash made an inviting gesture. “Go on. Most of the time the first thing that comes to mind is a good indication.”

“I fear there is not much to tell. Loki has always been very discreet about his lovers. He rarely showed himself with them in public. Well, there was this one time…”

“Go on. No wrong answers here.”

“About 300 years ago… Loki had taken a lover, a rather plain young man. Plain for Asgardian standards. One day one of the royal guards made some dismissive remark about Loki’s lover. I don’t even remember what he said. Nothing vile enough to cause actual outrage and Loki didn’t react to it at first. Then a few days later he tricked the guard into drinking a magic potion that forced him to voice every thought that was running through his head. So much harsher than any truth spell. Within the second day he was begging Loki on his knees to release him of the spell. Unfortunately Loki can hold on to a grudge for a very long time. He let four other days pass before putting him out of his misery. By the time the guard had been close to madness and had lost most of his friends. Loki has always had a cruel streak…” Thor shifted uncomfortably and Tony tried to imagine what it would be like to have no filter whatsoever between his brain and his mouth.

Sure, he was already talking a lot of bullshit, but saying simply everything? Like Cap’s costume looking ridiculous and Natasha being Fury’s little puppy? Nah, that would ensure he wasn’t going to live to see his 50th birthday. Yeah, that magical potion sucked… which didn’t mean that Tony wouldn’t have use for it.

Nash would do a flik-flak from utter happiness, that was for sure. “Cruel for sure, but also protective… I still have to go over all the video footage from the raft to find all potential targets. Until then I want a list of all your encounters with agent Rayne. Try to remember every time you might have offended or even insulted him. Even unwittingly. Given his ambition and attraction to power I am thinking about comments about his abilities or skills. Considering all the information I have on Agent Rayne he might be more inclined to try to get revenge for that rather than for physical violence against him. If he wants to get revenge at all.”

“I am sorry, am I getting this right? Although he’s been physically abused for seven months, you believe that he is… more upset about anyone of us doubting that he would be able to succeed with this mission?” It was the first thing Bruce said during their meeting and disbelief was written all over his face. Tony could only agree. Somebody calling you an idiot sucked, naturally, but it was still better than somebody smashing in your teeth.

Nash answered the question with a small nod. “I am 100% convinced of that.”

Leaning back Bruce shook his head. “That is just crazy.”

“Not really. The second agent Rayne chose Loki over SHIELD he became a traitor and in that moment he knew what was going to happen to him. Physical violence against him was part of the deal. He was locked away and beat up. Anyone could have done that to him. Doesn’t matter. The violence was merely an acknowledgement of what he had done. He isn’t going to take that personal. Doubting his abilities is something else entirely. So please, I want a report of every interaction you’ve ever had with agent Rayne. That would be all for now. Doctor Banner, if you don’t mind I would like to talk to you in private.”

 ***

“Chris? Really?”

It was a completely new look on Loki’s face. Kind of endearing. The sheer bewilderment. Christian laughed and shrugged. “Yes. I like how it sounds. I prefer it to Christian.”

“But it’s horribly plebeian.”

“Will you stop complaining? Loki isn’t the most sophisticated name either.”

Now he seemed downright shocked and Christian snickered with pleasure while the waiter was heading towards their table again. “Anything else I can get you, gentlemen?”

Instantly Loki nodded. “Yes. I am in shock and I think I will need an entire bottle of Bordeaux to get over it. Make sure it’s the most expensive one you have. I don’t care if it’s the best or not.”

Music to the waiter’s ears who quickly nodded and rushed away. Immensely entertained Christian grinned at the man opposite of him. “It’s shockingly easy to throw you off your balance.”

“Maybe I just want to throw money out of the window like the prince that I am. Also I will need a lot more alcohol to make ‘Chris’ sound good.” Loki rolled his eyes and downed the glass of champagne in front of him.

To Christian’s surprise it had been embarrassingly easy to spend the money they had made at the casino in three days. Suddenly Loki turned out to have really fancy and expensive taste. Not an actual surprise, they had hung out at nice places when Christian had still pretended to be Sebastian, but now it was pushing the boundaries. Five star hotel and Loki wouldn’t enter a restaurant that had offered you dinner for less than 100 bucks. Not that Christian minded, although he didn’t actually need any of it.

Only a blind man would miss though how much Loki enjoyed to be able to order people around and be as pretentious as a single person could be. Christian also found out that he enjoyed watching him like that.

Nevertheless Christian didn’t think that they were going to hang out in hotels forever and he didn’t have any interest in that anyway. The waiter came back with the new bottle of wine and almost did a little bow in front of Loki. He definitely had this aura around him, immediately making people understand that he was a big deal. Looking like himself or in any disguise, Loki was oozing charisma.

“What are we going to do next?”

“I am going to know my wine.” Loki raised his glass to emphasise his point and Christian sighed. “In general. I am doing fine. Perfectly so. There is no more reason for us to linger around here.”

“Except the amazing food, the beautiful sea, the gorgeous scenery and the sun shining every day.” Loki’s reply was smug as he leaned back and turned his head to the side to check out the waves crashing into the shore. That was definitely the most frustrating answer he could have given. “So we’re still on a prolonged holiday?”

A knowing smile was already playing around Loki’s lips, he didn’t even try to hide it. “What? Is there a problem with that?”

“No, I love this place. It’s beautiful… but… I would like to have an idea what is coming afterwards. It’s not the kind of holiday we go home afterwards. I am pretty sure I don’t have a home anymore. Also you wanted to show me so many things. I’d like to get started.”

Not even looking at him Loki smirked, gently twirling the glass in his hand. “A bit too soon to get restless, my love. Don’t you think?”

“I am not getting restless, I am… eager. I want to see all that you’ve seen. Just yesterday you told me that you slayed a creature similar to a dragon and now you want me to sit tight at the French Rivera… which is still not the worst fate. I don’t think you can hold that against me.” Christian wished that Loki would look at him, because this was actually weighing on his mind and he wanted Loki to see that.

What he got was another smile and that expression on Loki’s face which gave him goose bumps. One of those moments when Loki’s eyes hinted at what was lying beneath the surface. A dark storm of raw power that needed to be released at some time to cause the most beautiful disaster. Christian was aching to see just that.

“Oh, I would never hold your desires against you. I understand that this small, somewhat pathetic planet is too small for you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be interesting. Anyhow, we aren’t finished here yet. There is still business to attend to.”

Evidently something he was looking forward to, judging by the way he was happily sipping on his wine. Fine, Christian was playing along and tried his own glass. Delicious. It was hard to complain when there was wine this good and a view that beautiful. “That’s alright with me. I just want to know what we’re doing next.”

Finally Loki’s eyes were back on him. “Do you have an idea how we could get our hands on Vibranium?”

Christian had expected something a little more spectacular, but it was a start. “Vibranium. Pretty hard to get. Even on the black market. Costs a fortune and is very limited. SHIELD has a decent amount. Tony Stark too. I’ve read in reports on him that he purchased a lot of it a couple of years ago. Probably to work it into the suit.”

“Okay and what is SHIELD doing with it?”

“Trying to create weapons. Not very successful, because it’s almost impossible to change Vibranium’s natural form.”

“But there were some successes, am I right?”

“Yes, thanks to the Tesseract. They used some of its energy to create bullets. Projectiles that can burst through any kind of material. Against the Hulk or other creatures of his level. Or you of course.”

Loki smirked with satisfaction and Christian’s curiosity was sparked. “Why? What do you need it for?”

Clicking his tongue Loki put his glass down. “Research. I want to know what their weapons can actually do. So I need some Vibranium. Should I get it from Stark or from SHIELD?”

“Depends on how much you need. How much do you need?” Christian could feel the excitement surging as he leaned forward. As if Loki and him were having a secret conversation that nobody should overhear. As if Loki cared…

Loki indicated a small space with his thumb and index finger. “A piece of this seize would suffice.”

“Size of a bullet. SHIELD would be the place to go to. What are you planning on doing exactly?”

“Having a blast. I’ll need you to draw me a layout of the headquarters and then we’re going to have a little debate about what face I am going to wear.”

Loki was right, that definitely sounded like fun.

 ***

“I heard you had a preference for tea.” Nash smiled as he put down the cup in front of Bruce and despite trying to Bruce couldn’t find it in him to feel uneasy. The psychologist’s friendliness seemed genuine which was odd since Bruce had seen him snap at Natasha. Probably he really didn’t like her for some reason. Well, Tony had mentioned on the phone that he was pretty angry about her writing a report on Tony without the credits of a psychologist. Granted, Bruce wouldn’t be pleased either if Clint decided to publish a paper on nuclear fusion tomorrow.

Anyhow, Nash was still a SHIELD employee, higher in the food chain than Fury and that didn’t make Bruce want to trust him. He was still going to be polite. “Thank you.”

Nash sat down and made a gesture that said “Don’t mention it”.

“Is there something special that you want to talk about? Or is this my psychic evaluation? If so – why do I come first?”

“You come first, because I felt like having a rather pleasant conversation and I think you are a reasonable man.” Nash shot him a smile than opened the notebook in front of him. “Or are you also of the opinion that I am your enemy – sent to tear the Avengers apart and find a reason to fire Director Fury.”

“I don’t know.” Bruce replied honestly. “Are you?”

“I see the value in the Avengers and after the disaster that was your last mission I was sent to find out how that happened and analyse previous successes and failures to seek out a potential pattern. You are a scientist, I am sure you understand.”

Yes, Bruce did understand and he also wasn’t sure how to feel about that. “Alright, let’s get started.”

Nodding Nash tapped his pen against the notebook. “I would like to start at the beginning. You got… let’s call it recruited by agent Romanoff in India. Why did you go with her?”

“I figured I didn’t have much of a choice since SHIELD was already keeping an eye on me. The house was surrounded by SHIELD agents. Should I have just walked out of there? That would have ended in complete chaos.”

“I see… why didn’t you return to India after the Chitauri invasion? I am sure you would have found a way to slip from the radar.”

Bruce definitely wasn’t going to go into detail on this. “New opportunities opened up.”

“Like working with Mr. Stark?”

“For example.”

A few words were written down and Bruce very obviously stretched his neck to make them out, but Nash graciously ignored that. “How do you feel about working for SHIELD, Doctor Banner?”

“I am just glad that I’ve found a way to use the Hulk for doing something good.” He was going to stick to the short answers.

“How do you feel about working with Director Fury?”

“We don’t always agree, but there would be no Avengers without him.”

More notes.

“How did you feel when you saw the cage built for the Hulk on the Helicarrier?”

Bruce winced and then his body stiffened. Should he have expected that? No. Why would Nash bring up something that was over a year in the past? “Not good obviously. But I understand the necessity. The Hulk is an uncontrollable risk. You have to make sure that you can protect innocent people from him.”

It was probably a bad sign that Nash put the pen down. “Are you sure that this was the only purpose of the cage? To lock you up if you should lose control?”

Biting down on his lip Bruce tried to ignore the cold shudder running down his spine. “I don’t know. You are part of SHIELD. Why don’t you tell me?”

“Do you trust SHIELD, Doctor Banner?”

Since Nash already knew the answer to the question he didn’t bother to make it sound nicer. “No, but I trust my team.”

“Would you trust a SHIELD agent to save your life?”

Bruce thought about how the average agent was looking at him with big, suspicious and fearful eyes. “No, I don’t.”

Rather casually Nash propped up his chin on the palm of his hand. “So what about Agent Barton and Agent Romanoff? They are part of your team and they are SHIELD agents. Do you trust them or not?”

It felt like being slapped and Bruce realised that he had walked right into it. In what would result telling the truth and what did Bruce want to happen? He couldn’t pretend that they were a properly functioning unit within this organisation, but he had no idea if Nash was the person who could make things better.

“They are my teammates.”

“And agents. Agent Romanoff clearly doesn’t share your high opinion on your teammates giving the atrocious report she wrote on Mr. Stark after manipulating him while the man was on the verge of dying from blood poisoning. I’ve studied Agent Barton’s file and he will always support the same side as Agent Romanoff. Do you think that Agent Romanoff would stick a needle into your neck against your will if Director Fury told her so?”

“What is your problem with Natasha?”

“This is not about Agent Romanoff, but about you trusting your teammates. About how you work as a team. About what any of you would do in a situation where a team member gets threatened by a powerful entity like Loki. It’s about…”

A shrill sound filled the room and while Bruce jumped to his feet Nash remained sitting, raising one eyebrow and talking into his sleeve. “Unauthorized entry?”

A voice via microphone answered promptly. “Mr. Stark just entered sector B23 without permission.”

What? What the hell was Tony doing?

“Now that’s interesting…Activate the new security protocoll. Complete lock-down.”


	11. Doppelgänger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> Let's get back to it :)

What was going on? What was Tony doing and why hadn’t he told Bruce about it before hand? Then again, Bruce wasn’t really surprised. It was the worst time to pull some shit, so who would even doubt for a second that Tony wasn’t going to do something incredibly stupid and reckless. Still, if he wanted to check out some of SHIELD’s dirty secrets there would have been more subtle ways about it. Anything would have been better than immediately setting off every alarm possible.

At least Nash wasn’t losing his temper like Fury would have probably done. He seemed rather calm, almost amused by the situation. Nonetheless it was that kind amusement which should unsettle other people. One that you couldn’t trust.

Bruce was definitely more than confused when Nash didn’t ask him to leave the room, instead let him sit here until two agents walked in, Tony in between them.

“Really boys, I enjoy the VIP treatment, but this is really too much. A personal escort is making me blush.” Tony was already acting dismissively again, smiling brightly as he sat down next to Bruce. Even giving him a little wink. Nothing more was necessary to make Bruce feel incredibly uncomfortable.

Shaking his head Nash sat down on the edge of the table and raised one eyebrow at Tony who smiled in response. “I have the feeling he’s angry with me. Don’t you agree, Brucie?”

“I really don’t want to be dragged into whatever you’ve done, Tony.”

“Whatever he has done. How fitting. Mr. Stark, would you be friendly enough to tell us why you’ve entered a restricted area?” The smile on Nash’s lips was still nice enough, but there was no doubt that the conversation was serious nonetheless.

“In the question lies the answer. It’s a restricted area. With retinal scan and everything. If you don’t want people to get in there, don’t make it so attractive.”

“So you had no idea what was inside and caused a security breach for good fun?” Nash tilted his head and Tony crossed his legs, demonstratively leaning back in his chair. As to show how calm and at ease he was with everything going on. A little too much for Bruce’s taste.

“Not just for good fun. I wanted to know what SHIELD keeps inside of there. What Fury is hiding away.” Tony shrugged and Nash hummed softly. “You got inside, so why don’t you tell us what you found.”

“The usual. Prototypes for weapons. Alien artefacts and so on. Actually I expected a bit more.”

“As always I am incredibly said that we didn’t live up to your expectations. Now to the more important questions. Did you do this because you were bored? Because you wanted attention? Or because you wanted to cause a distraction?”

Now it became blatantly clear that Bruce had no idea what was going on. “Nash, what are you even talking about?”

Completely ignoring him Nash had his eyes fixed on Tony who was still having fun. Obviously. “Maybe I am just looking for ways to impress you.”

The smile got brighter and Nash shook his head ever so slightly. “Oh, I highly doubt that since you’re not even sure if you like me yet.”

“That’s harsh. Especially since you are such a nice person.”

Bruce wanted to ask if he could get up and leave, because whatever Tony was trying to pull off here, he didn’t want to be part of it. Then again, something odd was going on and he didn’t want to risk somebody else joining in and perhaps try to give Tony a hard time.

Nash made another strange sound, something between a laugh and a sigh. “How sweet, but I… One moment please.” After pulling out his phone Nash answered the incoming call. “Yes?” That was all he said for about 10 seconds and Bruce finally could see a shift in his facial expression that wasn’t 100 percent controlled. He was surprised. “Alright, I see. Will you please join us in the conference room?”

As soon as the conversation was finished Nash went back to talking to Tony, sounding a little more serious suddenly. “Mr. Stark, could you do me favour and say my first name?”

What was that about?

“I fear we haven’t been formally introduced yet, right?” Tony was showing off his signature smile and Nash nodded. “You are right about that, but I told Thor my first name. You were present.”

“Yeah, but I am a really bad listener.”

Nash nodded once more, then reached inside his jacket. Bruce instantly jumped up to his feet and Tony raised both hands. “Wow, clam down, okay. I just opened a door that I am not supposed to. My bad. Next drinks are on me?”

Bruce was trying to figure out what was happening here, but Nash pointing a gun at Tony just didn’t make any sense. In no context whatsoever. Or had Tony found something that he definitely shouldn’t see?

“I will gladly accept that invitation when we figured out our little dilemma.”

“What dilemma? That you are threatening to kill me?”

“Merely a security measure until we’ve cleared this up…”

The words had barely left Nash’s mouth when the door was flung open and three agents came inside and behind them Clint, Steve, Thor, Natasha and… Tony.

“Oh fuck, you weren’t kidding. Hey there, I know I have the greatest face ever and everybody wants to have it, but it’s still mine. So…” The Tony who had just entered the room was talking way too fast and gesticulating wildly, staring at his doppelgänger. The other Tony got up to his feet with the same outrage. “What the hell?! Who’s… What’s that? I hope this is supposed to be a joke, but I don’t think it’s funny!”

There were two Tonys and just when Bruce had wrapped his head around that, he realised that there could only be one and the other one had to be a fake. Also, there was only one person who could do that kind of thing.

Clearly he wasn’t the only one coming to that realisation since Natasha pulled her gun and pointed it at the Tony standing right next to her. Much to his disliking. “Are you kidding me?!”

“Sorry, Tony, but one of you is Loki and I am not going to take any risks.”

Nash didn’t take his eyes of the Tony he was holding his gone point while addressing Nat. “Agent Romanoff, I assume Mr. Stark hasn’t been with you the entire time since I started my conversation with Dr. Banner.”

“No. There was an absence of five minutes.”

“I had to go to the bathroom! Hey asshole, could you please stop borrowing my face? I really don’t enjoy having a gun pointed at me!”

“What? Do I look like I am enjoying myself?” The other Tony and Bruce’s head was spinning.

“Brother…” Thor’s eyes were traveling from one Tony to the other. “I beseech you to drop the act. I wish to talk to you.”

“Why are you looking at me?!”

“Oh, I am seriously getting pissed. Damn it, Nat, you are freaking me out.”

Steve took a step forward, suspiciously looking around the room. “Can everybody please stop talking for a second? We need to figure out who is Tony and who is Loki. I guess a few questions will be enough to…”

He very quickly got interrupted by Thor. “I doubt that, Captain. This is what Loki does best.”

“Gentlemen…” Eventually Nash lowered his gun since Clint was now doing his job. “This is not going to take long since Loki clearly didn’t plan on walking in here as Tony Stark and leaving again. I assume this entire setting is only meant to entertain him. Anyway, I’ve mentioned before that I would like to talk to Loki, so I will jump at the opportunity.” Sitting down Nash intensely eyed the Tony opposite of him and then the other one. “You easily walked in here and I know that you will walk out of here just as easily. I hope Christian is feeling better. It has been a week. He can’t feel good enough yet for you to take him on a trip to another world.”

The Tony in the doorway had no problem with showing off his annoyance. “Really? That’s just a low blow.”

Indeed, Bruce couldn’t imagine Loki falling for such an obvious…

“Oh, I think I am going to like you. Can we get to the formal introduction now?” The Tony who had entered the restricted area was elegantly sliding back down onto his chair and the smile on his face had nothing to do with Tony. Because it wasn’t Tony. Now Natasha’s gun was also pointed at him and he clearly didn’t care.

“Brother…”

“Thor, be quiet, I am talking to the man in charge.” Loki, still wearing Tony’s face, smiled at Nash. “So? My name is Loki. The reason why these six over there have a job.”

Bruce’s mouth dropped open when Nash actually laughed. “Graham Nash. Pleased to meet you. Now you please put your hands up, we’re ready to accept your surrender.”

Loki’s smile got so big that it almost tore his face apart. “Yes, I am going to like you.”

“You fucking…”

Before Tony had the chance to finish his insult Loki vanished into nothingness and Nash immediately turned to the agents. “I need all the security footage of sector B23. He took something, I am sure. Also go through agent Rayne’s login details. If he ever only put a foot into this area, I need to know.”

“Wow, wow, wow. Slow down a little bit. The guy who has just had a gun pointed at him gets to talk now.” Tony was shouting and as upset as Bruce had ever seen him. “Can somebody explain to me what the fuck is going on?!”

 ***

Exhausted and somewhat dizzy Christian sat up and rested his head against his knees .What a rollercoaster of emotions. One day ago Christian had felt like he had the world at his fingertips and now he was being reminded that he was still a fragile human being. He still hasn’t gained back the weight he had lost and despite being partly invincible Christian was still terribly out of shape. Merely a few sit-ups and he was completely out of breath. So much about the illusion that the creature’s magic had changed anything else about him.

Shaking his head Christian tried to cast these stupid thoughts away. He was going to be just fine. To gain back his weight all he had to do was eat and for his fitness he had to work out. Which was a slow process obviously, but today had been a start. A ridiculous and rather pathetic start but nonetheless.

Looking at the clock on the wall Christian wished for Loki to finally come back. He wasn’t worried, Loki could walk into SHIELD’s headquarters any day and tear the place apart without breaking a sweat. Still Christian wanted him to come back, mostly because he needed to know what they were actually were planning and what Loki needed Vibranium for.

Since Loki hadn’t given him a time Christian thought he could hit the showers. Which he did. The water was cooling down his hot and aching muscles. Heavenly. Christian wrapped a towel around his hips and left the bathroom with the intention to get something to drink from the kitchen. He never got there, because Tony Stark was sitting on the couch, grinning widely at him.

Christian’s mind had already gone through all potential weapons around him when he realised that this couldn’t be Tony Stark. Well, technically it could, but Christian knew better.

“Hello agent Rayne. Did you miss me?”

Okay? Was this some game that Loki wanted to play? “That depends. I was expecting someone else.”

“Well, I guess then I just made your day, because I am clearly so much more interesting than whoever you could have been waiting for.”

He definitely sounded like Stark and Christian couldn’t pretend that he didn’t enjoy fooling around a bit. “I don’t necessarily agree with that. Also it’s pretty impolite to enter a room with knocking or asking for permission.”

“Politeness is horribly overrated. Anyways since I do have some manners I brought you a present.” Loki reached into the pocket of Stark’s jacket and pulled out a knife. One that Christian had seen before. SHIELD special forces used it in combat, it was made out of Vibranium.

“Thanks, but I prefer guns. Knives and daggers are more my boyfriend’s thing.”

“A shame.” Loki sighed in a way too exaggerated way and got up from the couch. “But since we’re already talking about appropriate behaviour… do you think that’s an appropriate attire?”

Looking down at himself Christian raised an eyebrow. “Why? You don’t like it?”

“Quite the opposite…” Loki could perfectly imitate Stark’s cocky grin as he came closer and now it definitely became weird.

“Yeah, can we stop this? It’s not like I am against roleplay, but… not like this.” Christian shook his head and Loki laughed. Tony’s voice transferred back into his own like his face and it was an immensely relief to see that Loki was still just as tall as him. “Oh, I had the most fun, you cannot even imagine.”

Actually Christian could imagine. Very vividly. Leaning forward he quickly kissed Loki before asking what had happened. “I guess you let yourself be caught?”

“Most definitely. It was lovely to see how they instantly believed that Stark would infiltrate the base.”

“Yeah, because he’s done that before.”

“Makes it even more fun. Would you please get dressed, my love? We have things to do.” Loki actually winked at him and then walked out on the balcony. Whistling. Christian couldn’t deny the soft tingle within his chest. It was a treat seeing Loki so at ease and joyful. They would have to talk in detail about what happened at SHIELD if it had put Loki in such a good mood. For some reason Christian doubted that he had hurt anybody. It was more likely that he had messed with their heads. Now Christian just wanted to find out what Loki needed the Vibranium for.

After getting dressed Christian joined Loki on the balcony who was carelessly sitting on the railing, playing with the dagger in his hands. Balancing it easily on one finger. Christian stopped to watch him a little bit, enjoying the view. He felt the strange urge to lick his lips. Casting that thought aside Christian stepped closer, putting one hand on Loki’s thigh and rested his head against his shoulder. “Did you have fun?”

“Immensely. As it turns out our little… cooperation has set things in motion within SHIELD. When I waltzed in the secured area I wasn’t dragged into Fury’s office, but to see somebody else. Somebody named Nash. Do you know him?”

Again, not that much of a surprise. Christian’s mission had been supervised by Director Fury and Christian had escaped under his watch. Naturally there would be an investigation. Or maybe Fury had already been fired. Which would be great, Christian had loathed the pirate with every fibre of his being. “No, I haven’t heard of him, but SHIELD is a huge organisation, I can’t know everybody. All I need is a computer to look into it.”

“Good, I am morbidly curious. He seemed a lot more pleasant to talk to. A pity though, I would have been much more fun to set the organisation on fire with Fury still in place. Anyway, give me your hand.”

Christian did as he was told and Loki raised the knife. “Let’s see what the hardest material of your world as to offer.”

His movement was so quick that Christian only noticed the result of it which was agonizing pain. Jerking his hand back Christian stared at it. The cut was long, blood was surging. “What the…”

“Hmm…” Loki gently took a hold of his wrist and examined the wound. “How disappointing.”

Now Christian was biting his lip for an entirely different reason. Sure, he had also felt pain when Loki had tried to hurt him with other materials, but it was nothing compared to actually having his skin cut open. The realisation only slowly made its way to Christian’s mind. “The protection doesn’t work with Vibranium…”

“Evidently. Which is a shame… A Vibranium bullet fired at you would be just as deadly as any other bullet to a normal person.”

Staring at Loki Christian finally understood what had happened. “You went to SHIELD for a piece of Vibranium, because you wanted to know if it could hurt me?”

Loki shrugged in response. “I need to be thorough.”

“You gave me magic to protect me and the necklace would stop any bullet from flying my way anyway. This is clearly enough. You’ve done enough. I am definitely the most bulletproof human being on this planet.” Despite the pain Christian smiled and brushed his mouth over Loki’s cheek. The blood was running down his fingers, dropping on the floor and both of their clothes.

“I am not sure if it’s going to be enough.” Loki muttered while pulling a white cloth out of nowhere and carefully wrapping it around the fresh cut in Christian’s palm.

Slightly confused Christian raised an eyebrow at him. “Why not?”

“Like I said – I am going to burn this entire organisation down and I am going to cut a lot of people into tiny little pieces. When we do that… I would be very upset if one of them were to only lay a finger on you. Nobody wants me to get any more upset.”

 


	12. Infiltration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> It took some time, but here we go...
> 
> Have fun :)

The heat was making Christian dizzy as he dodged the next swing, taking a step back and trying not to stumble while doing so. At least he had no time to overthink any of it, because the next attack followed instantly. Christian had to jerkily move his entire body out of the way to avoid the knife that was supposed to slice his stomach open. He could hear the blade cutting through the air. A fist came dangerously close to his chin, but he once more made it to avoid the blow.

It was the last time though.

A deliberate kick brutally swiped him off his feet and Christian groaned as he landed on his back, stones on the ground digging into his back. Cold steel was being pressed against his jaw and Christian looked up to see amused green eyes with little sparks in them. Despite the pain and the strain in his muscles Christian couldn’t deny an excited tingle.

“That wasn’t bad…” Loki grinned as he straddled Christian’s hips. “… but you’re dead nonetheless.”

Christian hoped that Loki didn’t expect him to play fair, because that would be a first one for both of them. “You’re still going to kill me even if I yield?”

“First rule about making prisoners – don’t make any prisoners.” Loki’s voice was a purr that Christian could feel against his cheek and when he thought that Loki would move to kiss him Christian used the power in his legs to push himself of the ground. Rolling them over Christian pinned Loki down, one hand on his chest, the other one around his throat. The knife was still poised against Christian’s neck as he was breathing hard from the effort. “Call it a draw?”

“Why? You were already dead when you did that. It doesn’t count.” Loki smirked up at him, his face putting all that wonderful mischief on display. "

“Everything counts as long as it is convenient to you.” Christian pointed out and he made it sound like the compliment that it was. Leaning down he let his lips brush over Loki’s cheek. The blade was pressed harder against his skin and Christian enjoyed the feel of it, because he knew that Loki would never actually use it against him and because he knew that this normal blade couldn’t hurt him.

Instead fooling around some more Loki tilted his head and their lips slid together in a real kiss that never started gentle but quite intense. Immediately falling back into the exquisite feeling of Loki’s lips on his own Christian tightening his grip around the other’s throat and let his tongue glide into Loki’s mouth. The sigh he got in response was just wonderful and Loki opened up beneath him, his entire body going pliant. One second later there was the sound of the knife slithering across the ground as Loki dropped it to slide his hand into Christian’s hair.

It had never been easier to forget about a training session. Loki’s taste was intoxicating and Christian once more became painfully aware of how much he had missed it and that the prospect of doing this as many times as he wanted to was simply wonderful. Even more so when this gorgeous, powerful creature beneath him was completely giving into him, letting Christian control the intensity and the pace of the kiss. Sure, it was all an illusion, his hand around Loki’s throat didn’t mean anything. Loki could snap his neck any second if he wanted to. Nevertheless Loki let Christian do what he wanted and this was about the most exciting thing Christian could think of.

Shifting slightly Christian stretched out on top of Loki, dragging his teeth across Loki’s lower lip and let their tongues touch each other. His free hand travelled down Loki’s side, running over his hips, squeezing just a little bit. Loki grinned into the kiss and Christian thought that it was insane that there had never been something he had desired more than this man who sometimes still seemed completely out of his reach. Then again – here he was. Letting Christian do as he pleased.

Which he would have done if there hadn’t been an interruption. Christian sat up at the thought of somebody clearing their throat. Turning his head he spotted a man, staring at them with clear disapproval etching on his face. “Guys, you’re not at home. This is a public area.”

Yes, a public area that had been a completely remote part of the beach until five seconds ago. Loki propped himself up on his elbows, letting out sound of annoyance which was definitely dangerous. “I hate it when Midgardians try to tell me what I can and cannot do on their pathetic little planet.”

“Well, a bed would be more comfortable for this…”

“We are not done sparring.”

“Were you asleep during the last five minutes? We are definitely done.”

Loki cocked his head, grinning at Christian in the most gorgeous way. “What an intriguing creature you are… he annoys me. Should I let him disappear?”

After pondering the idea for a second Christian shook his head. “No, I think we should disappear. We can play exhibitionist another time.”

Clearly amused Loki loosely wrapped his arms around Christian’s shoulders and then there was the pulling sensation of teleportation. Seconds later they found themselves on the nice floor of their hotel room. Much better. They had left the knife behind, but Christian couldn’t care less. There were better things to do… and they didn’t include Loki crossing his arms behind his head and starting to make conversation. “Your reflexes are impressive for Midgardian standards, but we definitely need to work on how fast you can change from defence to attack mode.”

“Loki, you’ll need to forgive me, but I do not care about any of that now. We called it a draw. You are a god. I am a human being. That means I won. I’m taking my price.” To emphasise his point Christian squeezed, his fingernails digging into the skin of Loki’s neck.

“No, I don’t think so…”

Rather ungracefully Christian landed on the floor as Loki simply vanished from underneath him. “What did you do that for?”

“Fun.” Loki was standing by the bar and poured himself a glass of wine. “Also you haven’t yet worked hard enough for a reward. We still have work to do.”

Honestly frustrated Christian let his forehead rest against the floor. “Getting back at SHIELD is supposed to be fun. Not work.”

They were teasing each other which was indeed rather amusing, because Christian knew whatever they were doing, they couldn’t do a half-assed job on it. Not that Christian would ever want to do that. Rolling onto his back he hummed and then stretched his legs. “Alright, but no more sparring. I am an undercover agent, close fights are not my specialty.”

“Which is most wonderful. Otherwise you would be a horribly dull creature like most other people.” Loki pointed out before sipping on his wine. “Instead I would like you to find out a few secrets.”

Smirking softly Christian sat up. “That sounds more like my specialty.” Although Christian would have definitely preferred to do all kinds of things to Loki, he was more than intrigued by the idea of letting SHIELD pay for what they did to Loki. Or what they tried to do to him. Pathetic, arrogant idiots. Christian being one of them.

“I would like you to find out what changes the Avengers and SHIELD have undergone since I took you away. I want to know who is in charge and what happened to the man you call Fury. All of that would be very helpful. And…” Slowly Loki walked over and pulled Christian to his feet. “I would very much like to assist you.”

Christian smiled before leaning in to kiss Loki. “This is going to be fun.”

 ***

“You know I am not really happy with the situation overall… but at the same time this is the first time that I have the feeling that somebody is actually doing their job and you know… making an effort.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at Tony, failing to see where he was going with this and the billionaire sighed, gesturing helplessly. “You see… we’re clearly getting the boot and the first class treatment is gone. Which annoys me, because I always want the first class, gold star treatment. But here is the big but… Nash is doing shit. Loki was here and one second later all the codes are changed, the security footage gets scrutinised and best of all – he is already establishing a new security protocol and asked me to come up with a few ideas for new security measures against shapeshifters. Even better, he didn’t just ask me, several SHIELD departments are now working on that.”

“That’s nothing that Fury hasn’t or wouldn’t have done.” Natasha pointed out drily and Tony shrugged. “I can’t help you if you can’t see the difference. We were Fury’s own little pet project. Because the Avengers were his idea, he spent so much time on us, the rest of SHIELD kind of got ignored. Look at Rayne. If that guy had had his promotion a couple of years ago, he probably wouldn’t have fallen off the wagon.”

Inside of his guts Steve didn’t feel anything strange, no inclination to immediately protest, because he felt that Tony was on to something. Granted, Steve probably wasn’t qualified to judge how Fury had done his job, but he had to admit that Nash showed more presence within other parts of SHIELD, not merely Avengers related business. It was kind of embarrassing to think that Steve had been annoyed a couple of times when Nash had let them wait before a meeting, because he had still been dealing with… Well, Steve didn’t know what he had been dealing with, but he was always in talks with other agents, overseeing things and there was always some kind of document or file in his hand. Tony was definitely right about that, Nash was a hands-on guy and didn’t shy away from work.

“Did you forget that Nash said himself that Rayne was immensely attracted to power and that there is a good chance that he would have fallen for Loki anyway? Different level of power and all that… jazz.” It made Steve sick to even voice these thoughts. The logic behind Rayne’s thoughts was deeply disturbing and something that he couldn’t grasp. The overwhelming admiration, even adoration for destructive powers was something that Steve couldn’t understand. Especially when there were some many other traits that anyone could find attractive in another person. Kindness, thoughtfulness, patience, too many to name. Obviously none of that had mattered to Rayne when he had fallen for sheer force that couldn’t be used for something good.

Eventually it was Natasha who stopped his thoughts from wondering. “Since you are already moving on to the next topic I can assume that you have already given up on Fury?”

Steve couldn’t help notice how rarely she showed actual frustration, therefore he did indeed feel a little guilty. They really could have done more until now.

“Actually…” Bruce clearly his throat while taking off his glasses to polish them. Steve had the slight suspicion that he was only doing that so he wouldn’t have to look at anybody. “You can hate me for that, but I don’t think I mind that much.”

One of the rare times that Natasha looked genuinely shocked and Clint had to take over. “Why do you think that?”

Bruce shrugged, still polishing his glasses. “Because he asked a lot of good questions and he “Because he asked a lot of good questions and… I do think he is nice and he seemed to care about how I feel about SHIELD and if I think I got any support. Something that I never got from Fury. Personally I wouldn’t mind working for him.”

“You know that his behaviour is going to change as soon as he officially gets the job and Fury is history? He is a psychologist. He knows how to manipulate people and he knows what they want to hear.”

“No, I don’t know that, Nat. He could be full of shit, but same thing goes for Fury. None of us knows him like you do and for me he is just an acquaintance. A new boss doesn’t mean that much to me.”

“He is a puppet for the council. The people who wanted to kill the entire island of Manhattan.”

Steve could see that Bruce wanted to say something, but he didn’t.

“I know it was me who kicked off this conversation, but shouldn’t be go back to losing our minds about the fact that Loki can walk into the headquarters without anybody noticing? Sorry, Nat, but that is clearly my priority. Also I am with Bruce. I don’t care who is in charge of SHIELD, I expect to be screwed over anyway.” Tony clearly sounded like the conversation was over for him and Steve still had to figure out himself how he felt about all of this. It was tough to understand every side of the argument and not knowing which way to go. For now Steve smiled encouragingly at Natasha to let her feel that the issue wasn’t off the table.

Still, Loki perhaps walking in and out off headquarters for god knows how long was something they couldn’t ignore. Not even more than a minute. Nobody was able to ignore it. Even Alexander Pierce himself was getting involved now. Perhaps that was exaggeration, but SHIELD’s Number One was personally coming over to oversee what had happened the other day. Steve wasn’t exactly nervous to meet him, but there was definitely anticipation floating around in the air. Nash was enough of an unknown factor and Steve had no idea what to expect from Alexander Pierce. Whose fault was it going to be that Loki had infiltrated them? Because it had to be someone’s fault, this was how these things worked. Unfortunately. Nobody could take the blame for Loki’s madness and unpredictable powers.

So now they were waiting for Pierce to show up, because of course there would be a meeting with the Avengers. There was no doubt that Natasha would jump at the opportunity to talk to Pierce, bringing up Fury in some kind of way. Pretty much everybody in this room dreaded that moment. Also it wasn’t going to be easy since Nash showed up first, giving them a short briefing. If he was nervous about the visit of everybody’s boss, he didn’t let it show.

A couple of minutes later Steve should find out that there was no reason for Nash to feel ever so slightly nervous. To nobody’s surprise a young and gorgeous secretary opened the door to let Pierce inside. The surprise was that Pierce’s face didn’t mirror the dire situation. He was wearing a big smile on his lips. “Graham, how rude to not welcome me at the front door yourself.”

Nash answered with his really nice smile which looked perfectly real. “I am sorry. Up to my neck in work and preparations. Next time I will personally wait outside.”

More smiles and it was Pierce who walked over to Nash, not the other way round. They hugged and Steve could see the exact moment when Natasha buried whatever plan she had had. It seemed very unlikely to get help from here.

 ***

“You look stunning…” Loki brushed Christian’s hair aside to brush his lips over his exposed neck which resulted in him getting ungently elbowed in the ribs. “Stop that!”

His annoyance earned him Christian’s most vicious smirk through the mirror and normally that would have made his heart beat faster, but right now Christian was too busy pulling at his dress, trying to get the edge over his knees.

“Stop fidgeting! I just told you that you look stunning.” Now Loki was even wrapping an arm around his waist, acting terribly playful like he never did and it made Christian mad. Pushing him away Christian turned around and shook his head. “No touching. You didn’t allow me to touch you before and you certainly don’t get to touch me… like this.”

Loki kept grinning while Christian kept trying to make the dress look better. Or to make himself feel comfortable in the dress.

Laughing heartily Loki slipped his arms around Christian’s shoulders. “Stop that. You look perfect… also you can’t rearrange the dress, because it’s not really there. It’s an illusion.”

That wasn’t new information and yet having it spelled out for him made Christian appreciate it so much more. His heart may not be beating faster, but his whole body was tingling nonetheless by the awe he was feeling. Weighing out the confusion by so much. “How can it be an illusion when I can feel it beneath my fingers?”

“Because…” Loki leaned in, the tip of his nose brushing Christian’s cheek. “… my illusions are perfection. They look so real that your mind cannot recognize them as fake even when you know it. When you try to touch it and there’s nothing there… your mind just fills in the gaps.”

Christian felt a little, pleasant shiver running down his spine as Loki’s warm breath ghosted over his face. Somehow he was tempted to close his eyes and lean in to him. Then again there was so much he wanted to know. All of what Loki could show him. An entire world of unlimited possibilities. “But you know that it is an illusion… what do you see when you look at me like that? Did you feel my hair as you touched it?”

It was now that the smirk turned into a smile. The most gorgeous that Loki had. The one that always appeared on his face when Christian asked about his magic. “To explain that takes more time than we have. It’s different, because I created it. Sure, I can see it… but I can also see you underneath. At times I see it all at once. You and that lovely lady I just created.”

“That’s not confusing?”

“No.” Loki shook his head, his fingers tenderly tugging a strand of hair behind Christian’s ear. A strand of hair that wasn’t even there. “It’s like breathing and quite exciting.”

That was all it needed to make Christian completely forget about his initial discomfort. Leaning upwards Christian pressed his mouth on Loki’s, then turned it into a sweet kiss. He enjoyed it just as much as Loki’s pleased sigh.

“See? Wasn’t all that different.”

Christian shook his head, unable to not smile or to not feel fantastic. Turning back around Christian face the mirror again, exhaling slowly as he took in the reflection of that beautiful blond woman who looked completely alien to him. “Alright, I can wear an earpiece when I go in there, it would be detected immediately.”

“Doesn’t matter, I’ll be right behind you anyway.”

Loki shrugged when Christian raised an eyebrow at him. “Teleportation and invisibility are incredibly handy.”

“I can do this alone.” Christian said firmly and Loki crossed his arms in front of his chest, demonstratively unimpressed. “I know, but it would be a waste of resources not to use me. If you need a quick exit or anything unexpected happens.”

“It was my entire job to deal with things that are unexpected. I’ve dealt with you. How can this be any harder?”

“I’m not saying that it is. I just don’t want to miss out on the fun. One step behind you. Just imagine it like me having a seat in the first row.”

Christian met Loki’s eyes through the mirror, almost fighting the smile that was appearing on his lips. This was strange. Feeling amused by Loki’s inability to tell him that he just wanted to look out for him and at the same time feeling bested by it. “Alright, since I can’t talk you out of it… but I am calling the shots.”

Raising both hands as if he was going to surrender Loki nodded. “Sure, I’m just going to watch. I wouldn’t know how to do any of that anyway.”

Somehow Christian doubted that. “We will need a few code words. In case I notice anything strange and want to let you know. Or if I think they are on to me.”

Once more Loki’s arms slid across his waist and this time Christian let him. The words were muttered against his temple. “Like that could ever happen…”

Well, Loki was definitely right about that.


	13. Start over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody,
> 
> It's been a while, so let's continue...

Tony felt fucked and not in the good ‘somebody just sucked my brains out’ kind of way and more in a ‘somebody sucked my soul out and crushed it’ kind of way. Alright, there were worse things in the world than being stuck at SHIELD headquarters for an indefinite time. The coffee quality had come a long way during the last week and as it turned out there actually were some nice rooms with couches that didn’t try to break your spine when you sat down on them. Nevertheless Tony had definitely better things to do than sitting around and doing nothing. Well, not absolutely nothing, he still complained.

“I am so bored…” Tony whined and Clint rolled his eyes at him. Okay, so at least he might be able to get a conversation going.

“Only you can manage to be bored when SHIELD is going through the most massive changes since its founding. Kind of impressive.”

“I aim to please and you’re exaggerating. They’re changing the codes. That’s not the first time.” Tony let his head fall back against the arm rest and let out a whine.

It was enough for Clint to sigh and look up from his pad. “I thought you’d like this.”

“Huh?”

“Well, until now you’ve been a fan of what Nash does. Obviously that isn’t the case anymore if you have to stay put in one location for longer than 12 hours.”

Tony screwed his face up. “Totally… also this wasn’t Nash’s idea. Pierce ordered it.”

“And Nash said that he had already prepared everything. No wonder that Pierce loves him.”

There was only a little bit of bite in Clint’s voice, but it was still the most entertaining thing that had happened during the last couple of hours. “Yeah, Natasha looked pretty pissed. Kinda hard to get rid of the big boss’ favourite. Fury definitely did something wrong.”

“I doubt that. Him and Pierce go way back. Even if you don’t particularly like each other, if you work together for such a long time and stay alive, you definitely respect each other. Pierce is not the one that has put Fury’s work into question. That was the council.”

“Okay, but do you see Pierce standing up to them and demand that the investigation is ended? Nope. Instead he shows up, congratulates Nash on his great work, they come up with ideas to make this place Loki-proof and then he fucks off again. No word about Fury whatsoever.”

Clint nodded, confirming what they all had witnessed. “Not that surprising. The son of a bitch walked right into headquarters. It would be fucking scary if that wasn’t our priority.”

Yeah, that made sense. Unfortunately it also meant that Natasha was going to continue to be in a sour mood and that was getting on Tony’s nerves. “So what do you think? How long does it take to give all agents new access codes and passwords?” Tony used some extra disdain in the last word. Passwords. What was this? The Stone Age?

Evidently Clint had got to know him rather well over the last two years, because he could tell what exactly Tony was thinking about. “Isn’t it ironic? Years and years of research and new ideas how to make our work more safe. Fancy things like retinal scans, finger prints, voice analysis… Hell, I think somebody sometime even suggested a machine that scans and analyses the way you walk. All worth shit when you are dealing with a shapeshifter.”

About right and Tony hated to admit that. Maybe this was indeed the Stone Age, but at the top of his head he also couldn’t think of something more effective than a password. “So you have any idea why he stole a piece of Vibranium?”

“Not a clue. You are the expert on these kinds of things. All he stole was a knife made of Vibranium. He likes knives. Maybe he just wanted a new one and was seeking a little bit of a thrill. Bonus – he could piss us off like that.” Clint shrugged, a little bit casual, because let’s be serious – Loki stealing a knife was one of best scenarios. Stealing a knife meant he hadn’t killed or maimed anybody.

The same problem remained. Loki had walked into SHIELD headquarters like it was nothing. Honestly, Tony wouldn’t care that much if it didn’t mean that Loki could go anywhere. Anywhere included his own place.

“I wonder what Rayne thinks of that. If he is okay with Loki wandering around SHIELD headquarters. Maybe he was here to fetch some of Rayne’s old stuff?”

Clint shrugged casually. “I have no idea, but I don’t really understand psychopaths. Good for me, huh?”

Tony smiled lightly at that and then decided that he was done with this conversation. Since he was still bored, he checked his mail on his phone and then played SNAKE. Always made him feel nostalgic. One hour passed until both Clint and him received a message. Nash wanted to talk to them, another Avengers meeting. This was going to be so much fun.

They met up in the usual small conference room, the others were already there and judging by Natasha’s sour expression she had already an idea of what was going to happen. When Nash joined them he looked a little different than usual. Not quite as impeccable. The knot of his tie had been loosened, hanging somewhat limply around his neck. That was about it, the rest of him was just was perfectly put together as always. Therefore that little flaw stood out all the more. Tony thought it was cute.

“Thank you for your patience. We’re still in the middle of reorganising the security system and it will take a lot more time, but we’ve got your new passwords and codes. You learn them by heart and if you should try to access an area that is off-limits without being able to name the correct code, you will be treated like a hostile intruder. That will be the case for everybody in this facility. No exceptions for anybody.” Nash’s assistant handed out white envelopes and Steve was quick to ask how they could be sure that none of them was Loki right now.

“Ever since his little visit every single one of you has been under constant surveillance.” Nash answered drily. “You don’t share the passwords with anybody. Don’t read them out loud and don’t write them down anywhere. The envelopes are not going to leave this room.”

As Tony got his he instantly ripped it open. “I hope it’s something cool. Like DungeonsAndDragonsMaster007.” There was no reaction and Tony decided that nobody here had a sense of humour. What a pity. The password was the boring ensemble of letters and numbers that Tony had expected. SHIELD was so fucking uncreative, it hurt. Thanks to his amazing memory Tony knew his password by heart within a second. According to the sheet of paper Tony had clearance level 6. Whatever that meant.

“Sir, this information is not correct.”

Natasha was going to complain again. Normally Tony would have claimed that such a thing was always fun, but by now it was only annoying. Sure, he understood her dilemma. Nevertheless she had to understand at some point that she was getting nowhere with Nash. Perhaps she should try another strategy like sucking up to him.

“What is the problem, agent Romanoff?” Nash didn’t sound dismissive, but he instantly screwed up his face when Natasha put her sheet on the table where everybody could see it. That was one password straight for the trash. Fantastic, Nash was going to be pissed.

Stone cold Natasha gave her critic. “It says I have clearance level 6 which is incorrect. I have clearance level 7.”

“You had clearance level 7, agent Romanoff. Just like agent Barton. After an intense discussion with Alexander Pierce we’ve decided that your clearance level needed to be adjusted to your actual position. You are still field agents, there is absolutely no reason why you should possess a level 7 security clearance. Same with Captain Rogers. I don’t know what possessed Director Fury to ever grant you level 8. You have never undergone proper training and your psychic evaluations after your time in the ice are nowhere near finished. There is no reasonable argument to give you access to information that is pivotal for other agents with lower levels. So no, agent Romanoff. Your security clearance level is just fine. We will need new passwords though.”

Okay, Tony had changed his mind. This was going to be interesting.

Natasha was doing a good job at keeping her calm, but she definitely wasn’t trying to hide her spite as she leaned back and crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Sir, don’t you think that this has been going on long enough? You are evidently undoing everything that Director Fury has established. Given the extent of your changes I must be allowed to criticize. You tell us that we’re merely field agents. Well, sir, you are only a psychiatrist. So what gives you the authority to change anything about our status?”

Oh? Had they started all out open war without Tony noticing?

Nash looked rather annoyed than angry and Tony wasn’t surprised that he kept his calm. “Luckily I don’t owe you any explanation, but since you have trouble adapting to the new circumstances, I will gladly explain. I’ve been working for SHIELD for 10 years now. Longer than you have. I’ve earned my place through hard and most of all impeccable work. I am not a renegade or have I obtained my position through fortunate circumstances. I have been in charge of similar departments before, so there is no reason to criticize my qualifications.”

“So have our ways never crossed before you were sent to replace Director Fury?” Natasha lifted her chin as if she wanted to challenge him, but Nash brushed it off. “Because even two years ago I was way above your security clearance level. You will get a new password within the next hour. The rest of you are free to go. Please remember the dates of your next evaluation. Have a nice evening.”

And he was gone, his assistant trailing after him.

For the next couple of seconds there was merely odd silence and Tony felt the very strong urge to break it in the most uncomfortable way. “I think I’m falling in love with him.”

The reactions were worth it. Steve and Clint sent him a look that should probably kill him, Thor seemed confused, Bruce arched an eyebrow and Natasha… Well, she didn’t do anything. Probably still grumbling inwardly that Nash had won once more.

“Okay… I know we’ve had this before, but I believe Nat is right.” Steve muttered softly. “I wasn’t sure, but now… he definitely wants to limit our influence. It’s like he wants us to become a mere fighting unit.”

“What would be so bad about that?”

Steve and Natasha both stared at Bruce in disbelief. “What?”

Bruce shrugged. “I have no desire to be an important figure within SHIELD. The Hulk hits things. I don’t need high security clearance. If there is a global threat, I’ll gladly help, but I have no interest in spy games or power play. Also Nash does have a point. Tony and me are civilians, Thor is not even from this planet and sorry Cap, but I don’t totally disagree with what he said about you.”

“Nobody asked me, but I don’t give a damn about the security clearance either. Jarvis can hack into SHIELD’s servers at any time anyway.” Tony shrugged and Natasha sighed. “So you just want us to roll over? Give him complete control?”

It was Thor who pointed something so blatantly obvious it could have only been done by him. “I am confused, my friends, because I don’t see many differences to how things have been before. First it was Fury who decided what we were going to do and now it’s Nash. They both have the same superiors. I don’t see the difference.”

Natasha already opened her mouth to explain just how wrong Thor was, but Tony was astonished to see that and hear that not a single word came out. Well, one had to admit that Thor had a point. At least from his point of view, he had never been the type of guy to discuss missions and techniques with Fury. Unlike Natasha.

In the end it was all pretty obvious. Fury had been playing favourites. Tony couldn’t be sure if Nash wasn’t going to do the same thing, but his favourites definitely weren’t going to be Natasha and Clint. Maybe Tony should be more bothered about Nash interfering with their clearance levels, but Jarvis could indeed take care of everything.

“Anyway, you can keep this conversation going. I am heading home. My couch and my impossibly huge TV screen is waiting for me.” Tony got up from his chair and Bruce quickly did the same. “Me too. Well, except for the TV screen.”

They said their goodbyes and left the room where another agent was waiting to confiscate their passwords. While casually walking down the hall Bruce asked Tony if he believed there was a chance that Natasha was going to let it go. Eventually.

Tony answered with a shrug. God if he knew. This was like a business. Fury fucked up and now he was being replaced. He wasn’t the first and he wouldn’t be the last to make this experience. “You want to crash at my place? The TV screen isn’t an obligation for tonight. We could tinker with a few new ideas of mine.”

“Sure, that sounds like… Oh! God, I am so sorry. Are you alright?”

It was too hard not to snicker at Bruce’s embarrassment. That had probably something to do with the very remarkable attractiveness of the female agent he just bumped into. Well, that was what Bruce thought. Too much a gentleman to assume anything else, but Tony was 100% sure that the she had bumped into him, not the other way round.

A single loose strand of blond hair fell into her forehead which she elegantly brushed aside. “It was completely my fault, Doctor Banner. I am sorry.” She readjusted the grip she had on her files, flashed them a smile and then continued to quickly walk down the hall. So quickly that Tony didn’t even have the time to make some stupid comment. At least not in front of her, Bruce was still here. “Somebody was eager to have some body contact…” Tony wiggled his eyebrows and Bruce sighed deeply, his cheeks ever so slightly flushed. That was just priceless for a man his age.

“We should get her name. It’s been way too long since you had a date.”

“It’s been way since too long since you’ve minded your own business.”

“I am minding my own business all the time… and everybody else’s.”

Bruce shook his head in defeat and continued on his way, Tony one step behind him. Humming to himself Tony pondered which one of his new toys he should show Bruce. He still hadn’t come to a decision when they had reached the parking lot. Their cars weren’t that far apart so Tony still had time to notice Bruce rummaging through his pockets. “Can’t find your keys?”

“No, they’re right here… Wait… I can’t find my… Where is my key card?” Bruce kept digging into the pockets of his jacket. “I’m absolutely sure I put it in here.”

“Who cares? Nash told us that they were going to be deactivated within the day. You would have had to throw it in the trash anyway.” Tony shrugged, this was probably one of the things he cared least about in the entire world.

Unfortunately Bruce was way more serious about these kinds of things. “I know that I’ve had it here and I still had it in the…” When he trailed off Tony felt slightly confused by the look on Bruce’s face. “Brucie? Something wrong?”

“The agent in the hall. I think she took it.”

“Why should… Oh fuck. Can I tell Nash? I don’t want to miss an opportunity to look good in front of him.”

“Call him already!”

Like a good little employee Tony pulled out his phone and called their new boss who was very quick to pick up. “Mr. Stark, I am quite busy.”

“Me too, I was about to go home, but me and Bruce thought that you should know that a female agent, blonde, brown eyes, green dress, just nicked Bruce’s key card for the laboratories. Are you testing if we’re paying attention or…”

“Already way ahead of you, Mr. Stark. Doctor Banner’s card was used only three minutes ago. Accessing one of the computers in laboratory 5d. The new facials scans showed that this woman is not in our systems.”

Great, Loki could at least call before paying them a visit. “You already have 100 agents storming in there?”

“That is the last thing I want to do, Mr. Stark. We’re going to let him do whatever he wants, because I want to know what that is.”

Well, that could only go wrong, right?

 ***

“Loki? Are you here?”

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to draw any attention to myself.”

“Right, but this is way too easy… Also the agent we passed in the hall looked at me a little too long. I think they might be on to me. I need another ten minutes, so how about a distraction?”

“Oh, it will be my pleasure.”


	14. Too much fun

“Where is he now?” Steve was talking into his radio while rushing down the hallway with Clint and Natasha at his side.

“Laboratory 5d. We’ve had a visual from the security cams, but he has been able to shut them off.”

“On our way.”

“No! Captain Rogers, you listen to me! Nobody is going to move just yet! We’re working on getting the video back. We need to know what he is actually doing in there.”

Natasha shot him a dark look and Steve couldn’t agree more. “Nash, if we don’t go in there immediately, we will see the end of whatever he is doing and we will not like it. We have to…”

“Listen to me, Rogers! You are doing as you are told! You stay put!”

It was odd to hear Nash yell. Such a calm and matter-of-fact person was not supposed to lose their cool. Not a good sign, but he wasn’t the guy with actual combat experience. “With all due respect, sir, but Loki is…”

“I am positive that the person in laboratory is not even Loki, so the last thing we need is the Avengers knocking down the wrong door!”

That little piece of information had them stopping in their tracks and Natasha took over the conversation. “What makes you believe that it is not Loki?”

“Because I doubt that Loki would try and hack into our security system when he could just burn the entire place down…”

The realisation sat in a little too slow, but in the end there was only one possibility for who might be their intruder. “Rayne.”

“Exactly. So stay put until you receive other orders.”

Steve could do that, he was gritting his teeth though. It was Clint though who asked what everybody was thinking. “What? Are we supposed to let him do there whatever he wants, because Nash is interested in his psyche?”

“I am sure he has a plan. We just cannot know about it, because it’s about our security clearance.”

In another situation Steve might have sighed, but for now he only shook his head at Natasha. “Being sarcastic does not help us. If Rayne is indeed in the building, then Loki cannot be…”

There was no more time to say anything since alarms were going off within a matter of seconds. One distress signal after another. Coming from different parts of the facility.

“Please! The lab is on fire and we can’t open the door! Please!”

“He stabbed me! I’m bleeding! Send some help!”

“This is Sector A3, we need help!”

“Agent Moore speaking, the intruder is here! We are under fire! Need back up!”

It was that kind of a nightmare that no soldier would ever want to go through. An enemy that attacked you from so many different sides at once and who could be wherever he wanted to be. Steve hated to admit it to familiar, but he wasn’t too familiar with being the one on the defending side. Most of his experience had been going after Hydra directly, having somebody going after them like this was something new. Still that was no excuse for hesitating or endangering anybody.

Clint was already moving again, indicating them to come along. “Let’s go! This time we get that son of a bitch!”

“No, wait!” Steve had only seconds to make this decision, but he went with his gut on this one. “There are people who need your help! They come first. You go there and I’ll take care of Loki.”

Steve could tell that both of them were about to contradict him and he could not have that. Too many people’s lives were at stake for them to go after false priorities. This was not about catching Loki, but about limiting the damage he was doing. Most of their resources should be spent on protecting the people. “You go and help the wounded! There is a fire going on! You go there, I’ll make sure that Loki will be too busy to keep fucking things up.”

Clearly reluctantly Natasha and Clint eventually nodded and ran off in a different direction. Steve was going to handle Loki. The area had chosen to mess up was complete chaos. Steve entered into a hail of bullets. Which was utterly useless. His throat was closing up as he saw the bodies lying on the floor. Slashed and drenched in blood. It was only made worse by Loki’s casual smile and pose. He was sitting on a table with his legs crossed, clearly feeling entertained by the desperate and furious agents who were constantly firing their guns. Only to have the bullets bouncing off a golden force field that he had put up in the middle of the room. The knowledge and proof that Loki found actual pleasure in murder was making Steve’s skin crawl and increased his already strong wish to lose composure. To go over there without a plan to rip him into several pieces.

The firing eventually stopped and the grin was so wide and deranged it almost tore Loki’s face apart. “Already? I’m impressed. I expected you to keep doing something that has already proven to be completely useless. Maybe there are indeed indices of intelligent life on this planet.”

Nobody responded. Steve could feel their eyes on him, waiting for him to make a decision. To give orders. As for now he wished he would be able to ignore the corpses right in front of him. Some of them behind the line that Loki had drawn across the room. Were those people that he knew? Colleagues? People that he had greeted when he had run into them in the hallway? For now that didn’t matter, because Steve couldn’t get distracted. There were hundreds of other people in this building and as long as Loki was sitting there on this table, he wasn’t hurting anyone else. Steve had to keep him here.

“What is this all about, Loki? What do you want?”

Still grinning Loki cocked his head. “Do I have to want something? As for now I am only having fun.”

“This is your idea of fun? Causing a bloodbath? A few months ago you would have preferred to set all the lights in the city on green.”

That was before they had found him a boyfriend and then locked him up.

Now pulling a face Loki nodded lightly while glancing at one of his victims on the ground. “Well, I admit that I might have gone a little bit off the rails. But all the people here stared at me as if they were expecting the very worst of me, so… they got it. I only aim to please.”

Whatever had happened to this man to mess him up inside his head so badly?

“Can you take down the force field? We would like to get to the people on the other side to see if we can help them.”

“Always thinking about everybody else and I believed you might want to dance with me.”

If Loki wanted a fight, he could have one, Steve was more than willing to go down that route, but he was still trying to stall. He doubted that anyone on Loki’s side of the room was still breathing. “Please.”

The next grin revealed his marvellous white teeth. “Have I heard wrong? I think you were asking for permission to do something. That cannot be right.”

Steve was tensing and most probably Loki was exactly going for that. He was definitely aware that Steve had been one of the most reluctant members of the team when it had come down to Rayne’s mission. Maybe there was a chance to actually start a conversation. Or Loki just might rip him apart and start butchering people all over again. This was the most horrific thing about the entire situation – with Loki you never knew.

“I guess somebody… anybody should have told you that they are sorry. I do not regret trying everything in our might to stop you from harming even more people. You are not a good guy but a murderer and a criminal. You need to put behind bars or someplace where you no longer are a threat for anybody. I can never regret trying to do just that. I am sorry though about how this mission went down. You left us no choice, we were desperate. Nonetheless it was an unnecessarily cruel attempt to capture you.”

Clicking his tongue Loki leaned forward, his hands resting on the edge of the table. Steve could feel his eyes on his face, drilling into him. He couldn’t possibly have expected this apology, right? Was Loki surprised? Had Steve himself any idea where he was going with this?

“What did you make feel more uncomfortable, Captain Rogers?” Loki eventually asked in shockingly casual tone. “Watching me fall in love with a man or watching us sleeping together?”

To his horror Steve could feel his face turning warm and he desperately hoped that his cheeks weren’t showing off a suspicious colour. “None of that was pleasant. I wasn’t comfortable with the entire concept of the mission.”

“But it worked out so well for everybody involved, didn’t it? Well, except for several of the agents who were stupid enough to wake into my apartment. Oh and those guys.” Loki gestured at the dead men on the floor and Steve clenched one of his hands into a fist. Nobody, no matter who they were, what they had seen or what had been done to them, had the right to act so casually about death.

“So is this you getting back at us? Your form of revenge? The direct it at the ones who were involved. These men, nobody in this facility had anything to do with it!”

His voice was starting to shake with anger and Loki didn’t bat an eyelid. “This entire puny organisation had to do with it. To me a little analyst in an office is just as responsible as Fury, you, the Widow, Stark or even Thor. Talking about my idiot brother. Why isn’t he already waltzing in here, doing his usual stick? I am starting to feel neglected.”

“Your brother is doing what a hero should do. Helping the people that you endangered.”

Loki made a sound as if he was trying not to retch. “You are starting to bore me, Captain. Which is rather sad, I was having so much fun.”

Fun. He was calling this fun.

“This is going to stop now. Your rampage against innocent people ends right here.”

“Oh, even I bought that talk about anyone in here being innocent, even if I were to forget what happened… No, we still would be here for a very long list of reasons.” Loki moved off the table which was a pretty good indicator that their conversation was soon going to be over.

“You know that I will not let you walk out of here.”

“So I am going to get a dance after all?” The grin from the beginning was back and there was gold light surrounding Loki’s hand empty hand. When it vanished, it left behind one of the damned daggers they were all familiar with.

Enough stalling then. “Alright. Just the two of us. Take down the force field.”

“So much fun.” Loki didn’t move a finger, but the barrier visually collapsed and Steve had to make this all about him, no more other people getting involved. Curling his fingers tightly around the shield Steve launched at the Asgardian who was grinning like a madman as he dissolved into golden light. Steve hit the hard floor with nothing to soften his fall.

 ***

“Hello in there. I would immensely appreciate it if you were to stop snooping around in highly confidential data.”

Christian’s head came up as he heard that unknown voice resounding through the room. They had been able to restart the security protocol a little too fast for his taste. If they could use the coms again, there was a good chance that they might also see him. There was still Loki’s disguise for him. How much time left until they kicked him out of the system?

“Please, step away from the computer.”

Sure, as soon as he was done.

“Christian, I would be very unhappy to start our first conversation like this.”

So they had figured it out. All because he had gotten sloppy. Nicking Banner’s card had been a bad idea in hindsight, but Christian hadn’t been able to resist. Mostly because he had wanted to prove himself in front of Loki.

“I must apologize, but I am quite busy here. I don’t have time for small talk.”

“What a shame. I am a psychiatrist. Small talk is my specialty. We can skip it though, if you want that.”

Interesting. This had to be Nash. Fury’s replacement. He was definitely a lot less angry or just better at playing the game. He had to be. Christian would have loved to find out exactly what he was dealing with, but he had bigger fish to fry. He was diving into a sea of endless information, dark secrets and all the dirt he could have possibly hoped for. The shrink had to wait. Christian had always hated those guys anyway. They are practically doing the same job as himself, but could comfortably sit in an office.

“So many things that I want to ask you, but since we do not have that much time, I’ll skip right to the one that really interests me. Why have you such a hard time letting go? You scored big. A god broke you out of prison and as we know that is little that he cannot do. You could be lying on a beach. No, sorry, you would get bored after a week and a half. Still, there are a lot of other things that you might enjoy doing. Tear down a billion dollar company or take over a small nation. Endless possibilities with someone that powerful. Instead you come back here. Looks to me like a waste of Loki’s abilities. He has proven times and times again that the Avengers including his brother are no match for him. He seemed content to walk away from all of this for over a year. Then there is you and he immediately walks back in here. A bit of a waste, don’t you think?”

For just a fleeting second Christian’s fingers froze on the keyboard. Oh. He indeed knew how to play the game and what exact button to push. Way too obvious though. Nash had to be aware that Christian would look right through it. Just a cheap attempt to distract him. They both knew that and they both also knew that it was working just fine. Loki was only here because of him. Loki could go anywhere he wanted to, at any time. Not so long ago he had travelled to another world and told Christian stories about all the different places that they still might go.

After they had got this done, because this wasn’t merely the thirst for revenge that needed to be quenched. Somewhere within SHIELD facilities was a serum that might harm Loki and Christian wasn’t going to take that chance.

“A horrible waste. I agree.”

“Therefore it must be rather important whatever you are looking for. Mind telling me what it is?”

“Would you mind shutting up? I didn’t like your predecessor telling me what to do and I am not enjoying this either.”

“I guess that’s too bad, because I see the two of us talking a lot in the near future.”

The screen went black and Christian hissed. “Damn it!” It was best to put on a little show, but he was indeed getting upset about this situation. As Christian got up to his feet both of the doors to the room opened automatically and two teams of agents swarmed in. Several guns pointed at him and still nobody was coming closer. Christian could feel the pendant of his necklace against his skin and he almost mourned the fact that nobody had tried to shoot at him yet.

“You’ve definitely changed your look since you’ve left the Raft, Christian.”

Among one team there was one man who wasn’t aiming at him, he wasn’t even holding a gun. Christian wasn’t stupid enough to assume that he was unarmed though. “I guess I should have gone for a redhead instead of a blonde.”

The man with the side cut shot him a smile. “Loki did just fine with the new face he gave you for this little trip. Time for a proper introduction since I’ve heard so much about you. My name is…”

“Graham Nash. Born 22nd of September 1983 in Albany, New York. Parents Frank and Elizabeth. Only child. Always first of his class. Not just in college, but also during his training to become agent. Your references are so ridiculously good that you probably didn’t even need Alexander Pierce to get you into SHIELD. I think he did so anyway since your father and him go way back. Needless to mention that I’ve read your file.”

It was a pleasure to see him freeze. If only for a second. About as long as Christian. That was the entire problem with SHIELD they thought themselves untouchable when they were useless insects.

Nash got over that little surprise fairly quickly and offered him another smile. “I see. Did Loki tell you to get that information? Loki told me that he was going to like me.”

That was such a cheap shot and it pained Christian that it made him grit his teeth. This guy definitely got under his skin easier than Fury and that was a big achievement. “

“I doubt that you should consider this a compliment. He probably meant that he was going to enjoy taking you and this place apart.”

In response Nash shrugged. “I enjoy the attention either way.”

Christian made one step forward and at least ten voices shouted at him to freeze. What would he give for them to just start shooting at him. Unfortunately even SHIELD could not be that stupid. “You are going to regret saying that.”

“I doubt that.”

There was a clicking sound and Christian instinctively raised his head. Not even enough time for his blood to run cold. A fucking air vent. Somebody was launching at him from the ceiling. The weight pressed him down and just as his instincts to fight were setting in Christian’s attacker was thrown across the room, crashing with his back against the wall. A warm hand was closing around his wrist and Christian was being pulled away. Out of this room, out of this building, out of this country.

Loki was looking down at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. “Found anything interesting?”

“Definitely.” Groaning softly Christian rolled onto his back on the hard floor of their hotel room. “Mind taking that glamour off me? I am sick of being a woman.”

Chuckling softly Loki lay down next to him. “Why are you already complaining? I was having fun.”

Reaching for Loki’s hand Christian entwined their fingers and could feel the wetness on the other’s skin. Sticky. Christian didn’t have to look at it to know it was blood. “Seems to me like you were having a bit too much fun.”

“First of all, there is no such thing as too much fun and even if there was… Could it possibly be a bad thing? Having too much fun?”

Rolling onto his side Christian marvelled at the grin on Loki’s face. “No, I don’t think so. All I know is that you are going to have even more fun when I tell you what I found.”

Telling him could wait though. For now Christian preferred to kiss him fiercely and snake his fingers through Loki’s hair.


	15. Castles crumbling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everybody,
> 
> People are talking about what Christian found in all these files. So what did he find? 
> 
> Have fun

“Will somebody explain to me what happened here?” Because Tony had no idea what was going on. Him and every other agent within this building had been trying for the last the hour to undo the damage that Loki had done and save the ones he had almost ripped apart. Gruesome sight. No deaths though, as far as Tony knew. Nobody cared to inform them either. Usually Nash was so quick to call a meeting, but this time nothing happened. At least until Tony threatened with munity. They finally got their meeting and Tony got to ask his question.

“What happened here, Mr. Stark, was excellent work from everybody involved. I was positively surprised.”

Wait a minute, was that guy happy that Loki had waltzed into their headquarters and had torn a couple of rooms into shreds just for fun?

“I am sorry, what? Rayne snooped through secret files, Loki cut through people, they both got away and that was a success? And you seriously think that Fury had an odd way of managing things?”

Kind of a weird situation. Normally Natasha was the one confronting Nash and Tony didn’t feel too at ease in this role. Especially since Nash seemed completely unfazed and way more interested in the tablet in his hands.

“Everybody did as they were told and nobody died. I call that a success. You, Thor, Agent Romanoff and Barton did a great job at taking care of the mess that Loki had caused and helping out the agents in need. Captain Rogers showed good intuition by distracting Loki from causing further damage. It was good work from everybody. I fail to see why you are upset, Mr. Stark.”

Fine, then Tony had to be the one to point out the obvious. “Because Loki walks in and out of here as he pleases and we did not even try to keep him from doing that.”

Finally Nash put down the tablet and looked straight at him. It felt awkward to be at odds with him. “It was never our intention to detain or immobilize Loki.”

“So what were we trying to do?” Good, now at least Natasha joined in on the party and Nash didn’t mind. “To gain information. To understand what they want. Fighting Loki all this time without understanding him has led nowhere.”

“What information did we gain?”

A smile made its way on Nash’s face and the screen at the end of the table was switched on. “All of you watch this. While I confronted Rayne and started a conversation with him, we had Agent Moore crawling through the air vent. Eventually he jumped down and tackled Rayne. Look what happened.”

They all knew that Loki had teleported Rayne out of here, but Tony would admit that they missed out on the details. Like the agent dropping from the ceiling and landing on Rayne, then being picked up and tossed against the wall by an invisible force. Loki had clearly been pissed.

“How is the agent doing?” Steve asked quietly and Nash nodded. “A couple of broken bones, but he’ll be alright. Back to the video. It offers us a way to actually capture him. Please tell me that you see it or I’ll have to take back my song of praise.”

“You really enjoy giving a lecture, don’t you?” Clint groaned and then sat up a little straighter. “If it makes you happy… that wasn’t the necklace but Loki. Loki threw the guy across the room. Which means that the necklace didn’t go off when Rayne was pushed to the ground.”

It never happened to Tony and now he could tell that he definitely didn’t enjoy feeling stupid.

“Exactly. We need to figure out what this necklace can and cannot do. I know we’ve been here before, but now we’re going to do this right. Loki is making himself vulnerable through Rayne and that’s how we get him. He is bringing him to a raid although Rayne’s presence is more of a risk than an advantage. Still Loki brought him here. It’s their idea of romance. Doing things together. Like revenge. Loki is not doing this for himself. We’ll create a new scenario. For both of them. One in which Loki will have to choose between himself and his newfound love. A role reversal. There will be no more trying to find strategies how to take out Loki. Instead we’ll focus on Rayne. If we can get close enough, Loki will be forced to make a choice and at this time I am positive that it will be in our favour.”

At first Tony could only blink, he was so irritated. Then he waited a couple of seconds and since nobody said anything, he had to be the one to spell out the obvious. “So instead of just throwing an atomic bomb at him, you are counting on him to make a sacrifice of true love? Are you for real? You are a psychologist, aren’t you supposed to be the reasonable one here?”

As usual Nash didn’t get discouraged and merely smiled at him. “I am perfectly reasonable, Mr. Stark. Loki wouldn’t have had to come back for Rayne, but he did. He has shown himself to be protective. Enough to make me believe that this weakness can be exploited. We are going to do just that.”

“I have to agree with Tony.” Steve finally said. “I don’t think Loki would choose anybody’s safety over his own.”

Still unfazed Nash looked past him, his eyes locking with Thor’s. “What do you think? Is your brother capable of making a sacrifice for someone else? Out of love?”

Now this was getting ridiculous, Nash couldn’t seriously believe that Thor would…

“Yes. I think that he might.”

Well, that was a surprise.

 ***

“I fear I don’t understand.”

Christian smiled to himself while gently running the sponge down Loki’s arm, lazily cleaning the blood off him. Progress was happening very slowly, he got distracted by kissing the still dirty and clean skin. Also he was trying to let Loki know about every single thing that he had found. Which was harder than expected since Loki had trouble keeping up with him.

“I am rather surprised to hear that. Which part do you want me to repeat?”

Loki hummed pleasantly as Christian run the sponge down his spine. “Let me try to sum it up. Due to the trail of documents that you found, you think that they are doing more than just exchanging the current leadership. They are reforming the entire structure. That is not very surprising. Rather overdue. Let’s face it, none of them were really doing a good job.”

Amused Christian tilted his neck to press a kiss just below Loki’s ear. In response Loki sighed and leaned a bit heavier against him and Christian gladly pulled him closer against his chest. After dipping the sponge into the water Christian started to clean Loki’s shoulders although there was no blood to be found there. “It’s more than just that. I stumbled over a mission report. It was full of code words, almost impossible to make sense of it. What I got out of it though was worth the effort. I remembered hearing talk about that mission and how it was a complete failure. The man a team was supposed to protect got his head blown away. Real mess. They never got the ones who did it. No idea who did it either. The report I found says something different. It’s talking about a successful elimination of the target.”

“Interesting.” Loki mumbled, but hardly showed a reaction when Christian moved the sponge down his neck. “Does that mean SHIELD wanted that poor soul dead and made an assassination look like a failed attempt at protection?”

“Could be, but there was more. I didn’t have the time to go through all it, but to me it looks more like… The mission was legit. I believe that there was something else going on. Manipulation from within and not just that one single time.”

Loki shifted and Christian reluctantly let go of him so he could turn around and straddle him. “You have my full attention.”

“I don’t know anything for sure. I haven’t seen enough proof for that, but there might be a possibility that SHIELD is being infiltrated. By sleep agents or someone else, I don’t know. What I do know is that if there is someone playing a double game and trying to misuse SHIELD’s power and resources for something else… Then now would be the best time for a major leap forward. Thanks to you the director is on a forced hiatus, the Avengers are being re-evalued and the leading positions are being filled with new people. Never a better moment to get your own guy in a position of power.”

Rather pensively Loki tilted his head from side to side and eventually softly clicked his tongue. Christian liked that sound. He liked how it felt on his skin. Almost like goosebumps. His heartrate went a little up when Christian saw another red drop making its way down Loki’s neck. It had already mingled with water. A lone red spot on gorgeous white skin. Slowly a warm, almost hot feeling was rolling through Christian’s body, pooling in his stomach. Temptation was strong to lean up and lick that drop off, but they weren’t quite there yet. Instead Christian used the sponge and nevertheless enjoyed the tingle of lust that slowly got stronger.

“Are you talking about the blonde man who’s now ordering them around?”

Loki’s fingers were running over Christian’s still too short hair and that in combination with his words was enough to numb that tingle down. “Probably. Again, there is not enough information. What I can say for sure is that it is quite surprising he got the job he has now. There are at least 10 others in front of him on the list. Older, more practical experience. He is qualified enough and he is connected to the big boss. Still… his file reads like a perfect fairy tale. Perhaps too perfect. I’d need more information. More information on everything to make of it.”

“That should not be too much of a problem.” Loki smirked and Christian dropped the sponge into the water. He wasn’t feeling too pleased at the moment. “Nash, the blonde man, he said that you told him that you were going to like him.”

The smirk on Loki’s face got a little wider and it was the first time Christian didn’t feel very good about that. “Yes, I did. I enjoy talking to him much more than I did to Fury. That man was only irritating me. As he did you.”

“They’re all the same. Nash was antagonizing me. First conversation and he’s got under my skin more than Fury.”

Loki continued smirking. “I had no idea that it was so easy to push your buttons.”

“It’s not.”

“Are you sure?” Now Loki was teasing him and Christian would have actually enjoyed that if it wasn’t the cause of their conversation. Tangling both hands in Loki’s hair Loki pulled him down in a rough kiss. No taste of blood. Almost a pity and still the very best. “You are the one who knows how to push my buttons.”

After nipping on his lower lip Loki pulled back. “I’ll come back to that later. Does this mean that our little trip revealed the possibility that SHIELD is getting taken apart from within?”

Glad about the change of topic Christian nodded. “It’s possible, but we have too little information to be sure. It would be amazing though. The whole castle crumbling from within.”

“I disagree. It’s only fun to watch someone destroying themselves when you manipulated them into doing it. Otherwise it’s just unsatisfying.”

There, the tingle came right back and this time Christian leaned forward, licking over Loki’s neck. The blood was gone, but what did he care. “Would you do that? Bring order to something just to be able to knock it down yourself?”

“Never tried that before. Sound tempting, but I think I’d rather knock over an already crumbling castle. Later.” They kissed again and Christian was giving a damn about the water getting cold.

 ***

“What is it with you? You have that look upon your face.” Steve didn’t like it. Sure, he thought that Tony most of the time didn’t take thing seriously enough, but now when the other one seemed to be constantly pondering, it was even more concerning.

Tony shrugged in response, stirring his coffee. Not that he was looking at his cup, his eyes were staring down the hall where the clean-up was still happening. Loki might not have killed someone this time, but the damage to the building was nothing to sneeze at either.

“Come on, what is it? It worries me when you are not complaining about something or talking. Really, you being quiet is something I cannot handle.”

“I don’t like this.”

Well, at least he was talking now. “You don’t like what?”

Finally Tony shot him a short glance. “The sudden optimism. Sure, it’s nice to hear an actual ‘Well done’, but the rest of this story stinks.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile lightly. “Why? Because Nash was content with how we did our job and isn’t a constant pain anymore?”

“Yes, I feel heartbroken about not being his favourite anymore. I was planning on taking advantage of my position and get a better parking lot. Anyway… we dealt with Loki. Not exactly in the best way there is. Fine, nobody was killed, I am willing to call that a win and Nash finally realised that it needs to be on top of the priority list to take out Loki. All alright with that. What I don’t like is that we still have no idea what Loki actually did here.”

“Distracting everybody so Rayne could go through the files.”

Tony tapped one of his fingers against Steve’s chest. “Exactly! What files? You heard anything about that?”

Steve took a second to think about that before shaking his head. “No, I didn’t hear anything. I admit that’s a bit weird. What would Rayne be searching for?”

“No idea and why is nobody telling us about it.”


End file.
